A Body of Sand
by Hellsig Otoupeim
Summary: Her name was forged in the Sands of Harad, her blades shaped for the harshness of the desert. When Haradrim Assassin Rezef undergoes a loveless arranged marriage with Hiccup to seal a deal between their countries, it was already over for them."The Viking official would always remember her eyes, lifeless and cold –and pained. She merely stared blankly ahead. She was already dead."
1. Prologue

Every love story must have a sad ending.

Not always for the two lovers, but sometimes for a side character. Someone whose love has been taken away. Whose destiny changed for the worse when the lovebirds defied fate. I lost everything I could have had to love. All that is left is my soul, free to roam over earth, water, fire and skies. All that is left is the hope I can remain free forever in a striving land.

My name is Morgoth, the Dark Lord. I was a human once, a Haradrim of the golden Sands. But for now I am the Guardian of a country I brought to life. I had a name. Rezef Aath Golnaukhûn Morgoth Bûrznûl Mornûl Morgûl. A long name. The name of a winner, the name of an Assassin. I had a name, and a country. But now I am a shadow. I was human once.

The price of a love story, because in this world; nothing comes free.


	2. The News

**Disclaimer** **: I do not own Hiccup nor any of the HTTYD characters and settings. Harad, Oliphants and Haradrims belong to J.R.R. Tolkien as well as the Speech used (Black Speech of Mordor). However, traditions, Nazt, Matum, Rezef and the plotline are mine.**

* * *

"_Hiccup!"

A boy turned around, shaggy brow hair falling in front of his emerald eyes. He barely had the time to catch sight of a blond blur his Viking princess was already in his arms.

"_they are back! Stoic the Vast is finally back!"

From behind him, Toothless let out a small chuckle. After shooting his dragon a piercing glare, Hiccup turned to the blond who had untangled herself from his limbs. Their gaze crossed, and for a second he allowed himself to get lost in her ocean blue eyes.

She was beautiful. A gemstone he was lucky to even gaze upon. Hiccup was totally and utterly whipped by his love for her, his adoration for the woman before him. Had she motioned to a cliff and said 'jump' he would have. Had she decided to tear his heart apart, he would have given her his body to tear alongside. Had she chosen to be reckless and died, he would have followed her without batting an eyelash.

Hiccup was definitely in love with Astrid, and nothing could change that.

She grabbed his hand, sensing his eyes on her. They were like a fire within her soul, as water to a thirsty man. She slowly intertwined her fingers with his, her thumb brushing against the back of his hand. He smiled down at her, his eyes burning with desire, and Astrid felt like the most beautiful woman in the world. She felt her world lighten up, and suddenly both of them were running down the hill, hand in hand, to the harbour where his father had just docked.

* * *

Hiccup would not be able to tell what first set him on edge when he entered the harbour. Was it the way Gobber looked at him, with sorrow in his eyes? Or maybe the fact his father would not meet his eye. He felt Astrid's hand around his clench, and suddenly the world came crashing down.

"_son... We have to talk." 

The Hall of Fire had always been a place of merriness and joy. The fire burnt bright through the sleepless winter nights, when the snow was hurling outside and the ale flowing amongst the tankards of a banquet. Yet, when Hiccup entered the place that day, his father in toe, it was desert. The fire was dying in the great fireplace, casting shadows across the pillars. Moving shapes lured in the darks, engravings of Vikings and Dragons coming to life again. Hiccup turned to his father.

"_so few of you have returned..." he whispered, a feeling of foreboding in his soul and mind. His body felt heavy, as if the world had stopped for a second.

"_we were attacked."

The tone in which his father said those words made Hiccup's gaze snap to his eyes. They were full of sadness and pain.

"_we lost more than half of our men, when we were saved by a tribe of Men from the South."

"_South?"

His words seemed to have stuck in his throat, when his father answered.

"_we were saved by a tribe of Haradrim."

The Haradrims were savages. They hunted on Oliphant back, armed with jagged spears and rusted arrows. They were born killer, every man and woman master, slave or Assassin. Why they would have saved a flock of Vikings from the brink of death was incomprehensible. Would have been incomprehensible.

"_son, the Haradrims saved us to strike a deal with us." the sense of foreboding came back to Hiccup, and suddenly he saw clear as glass what was awaiting him.

"_The Haradrim village was full of dragons, Hiccup. They have lived in peace with them for as long as they can remember. They did not want us for our dragons…"

"_they why do they want to strike a deal, then?" he was confused, yet still saw where he fell into the story. He dreaded the moment his father would approach the subject.

"_son, they want the Vikings of Berk to provide them with crops, in exchange of which we will get meat. They also required wood, in exchange for hides. Hiccup, the deal needs to be set. And according to both Haradrim and Viking tradition, it will have to be set by..."

"_marriage." Whispered his son for him.

His father nodded, his eyes downcast.

"_the only woman of the Haradrim reigning tribe was a fifteen years old Assassin. Hiccup, you will have to marry her."

The words sounded like a death sentence to him. Fiercely, he replied;

"_but Astrid and I..."

"_I know." His father's voice was final, harsh.

"_And it will have to stop. I will talk to her parents, give them a place at the Thing but you will have to stop seeing the girl. Am I clear?"

"_No! I refuse! I will see Astrid and I will marry her!"

"_Hiccup!" his father's voice had boomed across the Hall of Fire like thunder. His head snapped up, and before him was no longer his dad. Before the young man stood his Chief, the man he owed his allegiance to.

"_you WILL marry this girl for the good of the village." His voice then softened. "I don't ask you to love her, Hiccup. Just to marry her and have her bear an heir. You can still try to see Astrid in secret."

Hiccup's face was downcast.

"_she will never be able to go out in public with me. She will never be able to carry a child. I can't ask that of her. To always live in the shadows and never marry. I would rather she was happy with another man than to force her to leave everything behind."

Two arms encircled him from behind, as the blond head of his girlfriend nestled on his shoulder.

"_Hiccup..."

Stoic looked away, before he sighed and turned back to his son.

"_let tonight be the last night you have as a free boy, my son. She arrives tomorrow."

The chief departed from the Hall of Fire, leaving his son to be free for one last night before the weight of the world would catch up upon him.


	3. Berk, or the End of the World

"_clouds on the horizon! Land on sight!"

The dreaded shout rose Rezef out of her reverie, as she swiftly got up from the bench she was sitting on. The frail boat they had been travelling on had been built to subtend the gentle waves of the Lake of Nûrn, not the heavy tosses of the Ocean. She felt like a stranger in this vast expense of water they had been travelling on for the past four days. Even the great Lake of Nûrn, which was once a sea that had been closed off by the shifting of the land, was only wide enough for two days of endless waves. Her and her tribe had been travelling on the treacherous waters for four days now, and the tension throughout the boat could be felt. The Haradrims were asking why they could not have flown here, arguing it would have been quicker. To be honest, Rezef did not know why they had not been allowed by the head of the tribe to fly here. Yet, if her 'uncle' had decided so, she was not going to afford complaining. She might have been important to this alliance, but she was not the only woman that could be used for the treaty. If she died, they would just chose another wife for the boy.

Rezef's eyes caught sight of the land first, but she kept quiet about it and let the boy on the mast shout it out, instants later. She was not in a hurry to land, and she would always miss the sands of her home.

Her body tensed as she sensed a shadow upon her back. With the swiftness of the Cobra, she turned and placed the blade of her dagger to the neck of the person sneaking up on her. Her 'Uncle's eyes met her own, and she withdrew it without a word.

"_you understand your role in this, Rezef?"

"_yes. Marry, honour our side of the treaty and make sure the dragons are treated adequately."

"_what are you to do if they are not?"

"_kill the villagers and bring my kin back to Harad."

Her 'uncle' nodded, pleased with her emotionless voice and acceptance of her destiny.

"_you are one of the best Assassins. Try not to make it too obvious what your role is at first. Keep a sharp eye and remember; you are Bûrznûl, the Dark Pain. Nothing will stand in your way. You will let nothing stand in your way."

Their eyes met for a second, his cold gaze against her icy Assassin eyes.

"_I am no longer a child. I will honour my part of the deal, if the Vikings honour theirs."

* * *

The plank hit the wood of the harbour with a dull sound. Rain had started to pour from the sky, and all the Haradrim were looking to the heavens in respect. Water was so rare in the land of the sand that when it rained, every blue moon, they would all stop and savour the cool touch of water on your skin. They would fill up tankards of the drinkable water and all strife and quarrels between clans would be forgotten for the duration of the rain. It was a present from the gods, their tears to be worshipped.

It was therefore considered a good omen by most of her kin that rain burst out when the plank connecting their boat to the harbour slammed against the wooden pillars. Rezef's 'uncle' was the first one to step onto the Viking land, the Chief of the Vikings coming to greet him with a fierce handshake.

"_Morfiil." Greeted Stoic. The Haradrim nodded to the man, a smile on his weather worn face.

"_a great omen is on the hour in which I bring my kin to you."

Rezef snorted softly from her place behind her 'uncle'. No one noticed as she listened to the adults again.

"_a great omen?" asked Stoic, confused.

"_rain, the tears of above. We are glad to be able to conclude this business with the approval of the Gods."

Stoic seemed a bit put off, as he slowly nodded and motioned to a scrawny boy behind him. A beautiful blond was standing next to him, and immediately Rezef took notice of their body stance.

Lovers.

The boy clumsily stood next to the Chief, as he presented him.

"_this is Hiccup. My son and your niece's husband to be."

She noticed the pain that flashed in the blonde's eyes, as well as how this Hiccup seemed to die for a second. Then, his green eyes rose to her uncle's and he nodded to him.

"_hello, Chief Morfiil." Her 'uncle' nodded to the boy, a critical eye scanning him.

"_you must be their dragon tamer." He said, motioning to his metal leg.

"_I am. I lost it to a Red Death." Her uncle nodded, a respectful look on his face.

"_Red Deaths are no laughing matter, young one. You are lucky to still be alive. Which dragon helped you in your strife?"

Rezef hid a little smirk when she heard those words. Of course her 'uncle' would say that. It was in his advantage.

"_a Night Fury"

Her eyes took a softer look when Rezef heard this. A Bûrztarbaam would only let herself be ridden by a worthy man, and she was somewhat reassured as to the status of her future husband.

"_she must be quite the dragon."

"_Toothless is a he, sir."

Toothless?! She bit back a sigh of annoyance –foreseeing many months of dullness in the company of the boy, when she noticed slightly mocking smiles appearing under the facial scarves around her. Rezef's eyes flashed a silent warning to all. He was still her husband to be, and she would require respect. Smiles faded, and serious faces replaced them.

She was an Assassin. A force to be reckoned with.

"_Hiccup, I understand you might be worried about your bride," said her 'uncle'. She snorted quietly again. Worried? She should be the worried one. "But it is Haradrim custom the husband may not see the bride in the week preceding the wedding. I must therefore ask you to send a woman to lead her and prepare her."

Hiccup looked at Stoic, who nodded and suggested to him.

"_get Gothi. She is the elder of our village and will see to my future daughter in law respectfully." He added the last part for Morfiil's benefit, aware of the scrutinizing black eyes which tracked his movements and analysed his words. The Haradrim merely nodded, before Stoic motioned to the boy to go and fetch the woman.

Rezef did not fail to notice from her place at the back of the ship the blond girl following him, and how their hands intertwined as they walked.

She looked away.

Rezef had not wanted this union to happen. She was an Assassin. A free woman. A shadow. For her, marriage would have been akin to death. Yet, when Morfiil asked, no requested, her to marry the boy her guild agreed. Why? She did not know. An Assassin voweds her path to loneliness. Having people close to you will forever kill you.

But Rezef never meant for him to have lose his love.

She had been brought up, from the instant the guild noticed her as a born Assassin and a legacy of those she had been, to believe love was a weakness. Humanity was a weakness. She agreed with the view. If you loved someone, you were irrational. If you were irrational, you would fail a mission. If you failed, you were killed. So she had no feelings.

Yet Hiccup did. The boy fell in love with the blonde, beautiful Viking, and Rezef had come to tear them apart. She felt pity, but she was an Assassin. Pity was foreign to her. She would fulfil her job.

And it involved marrying.

Breaking Hiccup's and the Girl's happiness.

Killing him.

She wasn't blind, and she knew love when she saw it. How many times had she used love to kill a man? How many innocent women's throats had she slit so her sinful husband could wallow in pity and die? How many children had she kidnapped and brought to the clan so their parents would die, tortured by their absence? She knew the sight of lust. She had used it against men to finally slit their throats in their bliss induced sleep. She knew the pettiness of crushes. She had also used them to her advantage, to advance in society and crush under her feet all those who still felt.

Yet, she never willed to break the innocence of the true victims. How many hateful stares had she seen, from children who finally understood they would never see their parents again? How many night had she woken up, in sweat because the souls of her kills still haunted her mind? Women begging for a mercy she did not possess. Children crying for parents in their fever induced delirium.

She had robbed so many of their love she did not want to do so again. Hiccup and Astrid (she had finally learnt the girl's name after five days in the bloody place) did not deserve their innocence to be crushed and torn apart by her.

No one did.

* * *

Gothi was an old woman. Hunched over and weather worn, she still carried with her a sense of pride and dignity that drew respect from the Assassin. The elder barely reached her shoulder, yet she bowed deeply to her, bringing her index and major fingers to her lips, then her forehead in the traditional greeting of her people. Gothi smiled, pleased with the girl's respect even after a week in her company and stood her up gently.

"_you are one of us now." She said, her mouth working the words slowly, for which Rezef was glad. None spoke Norse very well in her tribe, and her experience with the language was such that she could understand most things and reply, yet it remained hard. She breathed a thank you, and saw the elder smile at her thick accent.

"_I will lead you to get ready. Is anyone from your family helping you dress?"

"_there are no women of my blood on this ship. I shall bathe and prepare alone." She replied, chin high and eyes ablaze. Gothi smiled at the girl's spirit. The headscarf she wore hid her hair colour away, and the facial one blocked her view of Rezef's mouth and nose, yet her eyes were open to the world. She saw the coldness of ice in them. The eyes of those who have dealt death to others, yet have also given life to them. There was a small fire in them. A spark that would not go away.

"_are you a healer?" asked the elder again. Rezef looked at her, surprised.

"_it was part of my education." Her eyes hardened, weariness sweeping into them. "How do you know?"

The elder shrugged vaguely, leaving the girls with her questions. There was a silence, during which Rezef did not press the matter and they finally reached the bath house. The elder pushed the door open, motioning for the young girl to enter. She slowly placed the crate she had been carrying on the clean, wooden floor and looked around. Gothi lit a candle and the previously dark room was bathed in a dim, warm light. Rezef's eyes widened at the sight of the grand bathhouse, for she had been kept away from public facilities until her wedding day.

"_is this... Place used often?" she asked, wonder in her voice. Gothi turned around, her eyes amused.

"_at least every week, women have a bath. Most wash everyday though."

"_do you have that much water to spare?" asked Rezef, dumbstruck. Water was so scarce in Harad they would never dream of using it to wash daily. It was only used in births, weddings, burials and important rituals. Even the chief did not wash often, and most of them had a bath once in two months, in the sea of Nûrn.

Gothi smiled at the girl's wondrous look and motioned for her to enter a bath she had filled.

"_go, it will be cold."

Silent, Rezef dropped the scarf covering her face. Purple lips and tanned skin came into view, a surprise to Gothi. She would have expected dark, chocolate like skin and red lips from a Haradrim.

"_I am only the adoptive niece of Morfiil. I am an orphan, from a Viking father and a Haradrim mother. I am an _aath_. A half-breed."

Thick, black hair tumbled down her shoulder as she undid her head scarf and the braid that held it together. Next came off her leather shirt, revealing a black, stained undershirt. She took the leather trousers off before the undershirt, and then her underwear. Standing without an ounce of shyness in front of the other woman, Rezef entered the bath.

Gothi could not help but notice the long scar running down the girl's back. Neither could she ignore the multitude of smaller ones covering her body. Some seemed to have been arrow wounds, whilst others were clearly made by swords and daggers. Rezef felt the woman's gaze on her, and as she grabbed the soap to wash the blood and filth away, she replied to her unspoken question.

"_most of those were obtained in battle. They are mistakes, stupid ones I made once and never again when I was still learning the way of the Assassins. That one however..." she trailed, motioning to her back. "I got it saving a boy."

That got Gothi's attention.

Rezef's words halted, as she seemed to fall quiet and it was the healer which gently tugged the conversation forward.

"_how so?"

Dark eyes veiled, as she appeared to relive the scene.

"_he was barely older than a toddler. Maybe five. I was raiding an enemy tribe under the order of the guild because they had stolen cattle from us. They were resting, and the boy was tied outside of their tents. Apparently, he had been naughty and had broken the water jar. They had left him out for the night after a rough beating. In the desert, with nothing to keep heat, the temperature can drop to minus thirty in a night. The boy would have died. After I had slaughtered everyone in their sleep, I went to free the boy and give him a fair chance at surviving in the wild. I could not have kept him with me. He had a nasty gash on his chest. It was infected and would have killed him anyway.

A hunting party from the clan had arrived at that moment. They saw the massacre and pieced the puzzle. I had my back to them, looking at the boy's wound, when a man drew his sword and tried to kill me. I moved, but he got my back. By the end of the night, there were no survivors. The little boy died as well."

"_they killed him?" asked the elder. She stopped scrubbing, rinsed herself and got out. She wordlessly emptied her bath water, dried herself and put her undergarments on. The water was black, filled with filth. Her skin was red from scrubbing, yet she did not feel any cleaner. Her stains ran deeper. Maybe this was why the Haradrims did not bother with washing. Because they were dirty from the inside, stained by their sins. She was fingering the fabric of her leather shirt when she carried on with her story.

"_the boy was wounded again during the fight, I still don't know how. I suspect a horse. His body and soul were beyond help. I killed him and burnt his corpse. It was… it was the last time I let myself linger on a wounded man in battle." Rezef looked away. " The boy was dead from the start anyways."

Gothi's eyes softened at the girl.

"_how do you know the way of plants?"

"_plants? No. Us Haradrims do not use plants. We do not have any."

"_then, how do you heal?" the elder asked with a barely concealed surprise.

"_by channelling out inner energy. It allows us to heal almost anything."

"_almost?"

"_there is no cure for age and the passing of beauty. Even less for death. Yet the healers try. Most die trying. They spend all their energy and their heart simply ceases to beat. Us Assassins are healers who have chosen to deal death rather than life. We are trained as healers but do not feel the appeal of the profession. We prefer to have the freedom to deal death rather than to be slaves of life."

A faint smile appeared on Gothi's face, as Rezef opened the small wooden chest on the floor. A red and golden shirt appeared, followed by a black undershirt. She also pulled out a pair of golden, baggy trousers tight at the ankles, and a red fabric to tie around her waist. Sitting in front of the only mirror of the room, Rezef began to carefully braid parts of her hair. For the ceremony, she would not wear her headscarf and would only remove her facial one for the very Viking-y kiss required to make everyone happy. Haradrims did not do well in affection.

Once the rest of her nightmare black hair was dealt with by simply brushing it, she slipped on the black undershirt which clung to her body like a second skin. The trousers came on next, as she tied them around her waist and ankle. She was tying the red cloth around her waist, as sash when the elder spoke.

"_do you not wear a skirt?" asked Gothi, somewhat traditionalist.

"_desert women do not wear skirts, Assassins even less. They are tricky to move in and restrict your fighting range. When you wear a skirt, you die."

Gothi found nothing more to say, and observed her next step. Rezef took the ornate shirt and started pulling it on, tightening the strings in front of her. The shirt kissed her forms perfectly, with the sleeves of the arms coming to a stop at her elbows. She tied them half way up her biceps by clipping two black bracelets there. Then, and to Gothi's surprise, Rezef pulled on her armour.

The black leather plastron was complimented surprisingly well by the red and golden ornate shirt, but the bottom of the leather garment was something she had never seen. The conception seemed to be a skirt, with two slits going up in the middle, at the front and at the back, providing the wearer with complete and utter freedom of movement. The bottom of the trousers had been slipped in black leather boots, and when the Assassin slipped daggers in their sheaths and strapped her swords to her back she looked beautiful. Wild, deadly and lethal, but beautiful. She drew her double edged twin blades, made of black mythril and engraved with names. Their hilts were of onyx, dark as the night and polished by blood and sweat. She presented them to the elder.

"_they are Nazt and Matum. Sting and Death in my language."

Gothi looked at them, respect in her wise eyes.

"_they are fine weapons, Rezef."

Beautiful and deadly. Like you.

The Haradrim, snorted, before putting them back in their sheaths on her back and carrying on with her wedding preparations.

She opened a smaller box, within the crate, and pulled out golden loops she placed in her ears. She put a ring made of three bands, a black, red and golden one around her right index finger, and a similar ring on a chain around her neck. She turned to Gothi, who motioned to the ornaments. Rezef nodded.

"_they represent earth, heaven and death."

She grabbed three pots of war paint from the box and opened the golden one. Tilting it towards Gothi so that the elder could see, she smeared the paste onto her index. Rezef made a line under her left eye with it, saying;

"_the gold represents heaven."

Her other finger dipped in the red, and she drew another line, under the previous one with it.

"_red is the earth, the blood we shed."

And she finished with a black line.

"_and black is death."

She outlined her eyes with the colour, smeared it across her lips.

"_were I a priest, a healer or a chief, I would have used gold. A commoner would use red. I am an Assassin. I use black for my eyes, a warning to the world, and for my lips. I deal the kiss of death."

She turned to Gothi, her whole being resumed to a face devoid of emotions with the facial scarf back on.

"_I am ready."


	4. The End of a Beginning

The ceremony was held in the Haradrim fashion, though the Vikings had insisted in certain traditions of theirs to be perpetuated. As such, Rezef had been required to write vows to her husband, and they had to kiss to seal the pact. A Haradrim priest and a Viking druid would over look the ceremony, making sure the gods did not disapprove of the wedding. In all honesty, Rezef could not care less.

The wedding was held in front of the Hall of Fire, the priest standing on the threshold. Hiccup stood before him, the rain having stuck his hair to his face. He seemed miserable standing there, waiting for a bride he did not love –would never truly learn to love. From time to time, his gaze would stray to Astrid's red eyes, and he would be the only one to notice the tears mixing to the rain. He could feel the stares of the twenty Haradrims behind him, all seated on the right hand side of the aisle. He could not help but shiver when he looked at them, their rouged, golden or blackened lips, their cold stares and war clothes. Women wore a facial scarf, red and shielding from view any humanity they still held. Some had chains around their ankles, men and women alike. Others wore rich clothing, embedded with gold.

He could only hope his wife would be less scary.

Murmurs were blooming in the crowd, with the bride meant to arrive in less than half an hour. Suddenly, silence downed as Gothi walked down the aisle and sat beside the Chief of the Vikings.

"_the bride has come." Announced a priest in Norse. The words we repeated in Haradrim, and all the people of the South rose. Humming began from the throat of a man and a woman, voices harmonizing. The steady beat of a male voice joined them, until all Haradrims present had begun to sing. Some hummed, whilst others made sounds with their hands. The Head of the Tribe, Morfiil then began to sing.

His voice was not the best, yet the words in the tongue of the Haradrim made it seem like Bardr himself had come down from Asgard. Sounds seem to roll off his tongue, sweet and welcoming. The booming of a voice next to him was like thunder, whilst a woman's calm tune replied. The song was harmony, balance and life.

The bride appeared.

She was a fully clad warrior, her blade's handle on her back reflecting the last rays of the sun. Her leather armour was the one of heroes, simple and efficient. Her clothing was rich, but complimented the simplicity of the warrior she was. The three lines on her cheek, shared by all Haradrims present, seemed to give her a wild look, only accentuated by her hair, unbraided and unkempt in parts, flowing behind her.

She was beautiful, and he could have loved her. But she was not Astrid.

She walked to him with the grace of a feline, not missing the way his eyes strayed to the blond girl crying quietly in the back of the ceremonial procession. She could taste her sorrow on the air, their broken love. Rezef took stance next to her soon to be husband with a bitter taste in her mouth.

The Haradrim priest took a cup from the hands of the Druid, raising it to the heaven. He took a golden coin and placed it above it.

"_blessings from the heavens."

He then levelled it in front of him, and both soon-to-be -weds extended their right hand. Two drops of blood fell in the cup, as the priest uttered those words again.

"_blessings from the earth."

He then lowered his arms, black onyx powder in his hand.

"_blessings from the deads."

Hiccup took the cup first, bringing it to Rezef's lips. She took a sip, before cradling the chalice and raising it to her husband's mouth. His face scrunched up at the taste, but he drank it nonetheless, swallowing soon after. She handed the cup back to the Haradrim priest, who hid a smile and turned to the druid, stepping back to leave the Viking in charge of the ceremony.

"_Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, do you take Rezef Aath Golnaukhûn Bûrznûl Mornûl Morgûl as your spouse, and thus until death doth you part?"

"_I do."

"_Rezef Aath Golnaukhûn Bûrznûl Mornûl Morgûl, do you take Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III as your spouse, and thus until death doth you part?"

"_I do."

Her voice was thickly laced with a chanting accent, something he expected she would never loose. As surprising as her name, as the time she had invested into learning his language.

"_exchange your vows for one another, and may we be the witnesses of a blessed union."

They winced, both fully aware their union would be everything but blessed.

"_I, Hiccup, promise to care for you. I will strive to love and provide you with anything you might need, be it love or attention, care or relief. I promise to stay by your side, when all around you seems to crumble and fall. I make the vow to forever strive to understand you, even when our own humanity pushes us aside. I swear to never raise a hand on you, in anger or violence, but rather to let those hands build you a home. I wish to never..."

His voice faltered, and his gaze switched to the blond girl behind her. Rezef knew the following words were not to her, but she let it be. They deserved their happy ending as well.

"_I wish to never be parted from you and always love you. I promised to remain by you until death or love doth us part.I promise to do so, and I will continue to uphold my death, love or life doth us part."

It was her turn now. Those vows had taken her a long time to write. She was not used to the Norse grammar, but it had not been the problem. Rezef did not want to lie. She would have to chose her words carefully, as to not bind herself to something she could not do.

"_I, Rezef, promise to care for you. I will strive to help you achieve your goal, and the one your heart truly pursues. I promise to uphold your name and reputation, through war, love and bloodshed. I make the vow to forever strive to understand you, even when our own human selfish needs carry us apart. I swear to never harm you, be it by poison, words or acts and to rather create for you a home where poisons have antidotes, words are as honey and acts are ones of love. I wish for my path to never stray from the one of your happiness and to always strive to achieve for you love. I promise to you happiness until I can no more, by death or love. I will continue to uphold my promise."

Those words fell like acid from her lips.

"_Until death, love or life doth us part."

She did not falter in her vows. Her voice had been firm, flowing with her chanting accent. Hiccup had not expected to hear such fine Norse from her, and he had been surprised and touched she had learnt his language. Her icy black eyes had settled on his, and suddenly he knew.

That she knew.

The rest of the ceremony had been nothing but a blur in Hiccup's memory. All he could remember was that she knew. Yet, Rezef would forever remember it.

When she had been younger, a girl who still dreamed to be a princess, she had always imagined she would fall in love and marry someone of her choice. It was, after all, as current for love marriages to happen than for arranged marriages in the tribe of the South. As an Assassin, she had totally abandoned the thought of marriage. All she would have been to a man would be another doll in a Harem, only one that could kill. No one would love a Haradrim Assassin. She was death's angel.

And yet, here she was. She could have loved the boy. She would have, but they needed to be two for it to be love. Otherwise, it was only pain.

And sometimes, she could almost feel a fiery stab of jealousy pierce her.

Hiccup had Astrid. But who did she have?

As a young girl, she would have imagined her first kiss to be to a boy she loved. It would have been under the night sky of the Great Desert of Harad, and it would have been magical.

Her first kiss had been to a drunken old man in a tent. She had killed him ten minutes later, when he had lost enough of his reason to not be able to defend himself.

She had always thought her marriage kiss would be the one she would want to remember as her first kiss, yet even the one with the drunken old man in then tent seemed better than the one she had shared with her husband.

When the druid had said to Hiccup;

"_you may kiss the bride", his face had drained of all colour. With shaking hands, he had undone her facial scarf. His eyes had widened when he had seen the colour of her lipstick, the shape of her face, and he had nervously swallowed. He was leaning in apprehensively when Rezef took pity of him and, grabbing his fur jacket to lower him down to her level, kissed him on the lips for a quarter of a second. Quickly, she let go of him, a blush starting to form on his cheeks. She had put her facial scarf back in place and had wordlessly stared at the druid.

The Viking official would always remember her eyes, lifeless and cold –and pained. The cheers and whooping of the Haradrims, followed by the polite clapping of the Vikings did nothing to her mood, and she merely stared blankly ahead. She was already dead. When Hiccup had finally gathered himself enough, the Druid said;

"_I declare you husband and wife. May the gods smile upon the hour of your union."

And he felt as if he had just sentenced them. From the dark pain in her eyes to the paleness of his skin, this union could have not been any more a parody of marriage. It was so painful to watch, so hurtful to even envision the druid wondered why. Why bother in believing in love, when two people like those two wouldn't ever find it?

Chin high, her husband beside her, Rezef walked past the priest and druid to the door. She deftly passed over the threshold and wrung out her hair from the rain outside. Hiccup came in next to her, as cheers and claps from the marital procession erupted. Stepping over the threshold of the newlywed house (theirs was too far away so the Hall of Fire had been chosen) without tripping meant a life of happiness for the couple. She looked at him without a word as he sat at the head of the table and went to grab a tankard of ale. When all the guests had come in and silence was made in the Hall, she brought the tankard to her husband and both drank from it. Cheers erupted again, and soon the Haradrims were eating, laughing and fighting loudly, sign the reception was a good one. Only Rezef sat by her husband at the head of the table, unspeaking and unmoving –until one of her tribe spoke to her in their singing tongue. Hiccup watched as she rose in response to a jab from one of the Haradrims. He saw her walk, no –prowl towards her prey and suddenly, the commotion stopped on the Haradrim side. All turned to the woman who was face to face with the one who had called to her earlier.

Morfiil stood by, leaning against the main table as he watched the two begin to circle one another in the space made by the arms of the U shape the tables had been arranged in.

"_what is going on?" asked Stoic.

"_it is a Haradrim tradition that one of the newlywed fights against a member of both households. Rezef is currently fighting against my son. Soon, she will be against you or someone close to you."

"_we must be careful of her then, we would not want to harm her before the nuptial night."

Morfiil laughed patronisingly.

"_you should not worry about her. She is tougher than you might think."

Stoic watched the girl and her cousin. They were circling one another, judging the other's stance and guard when suddenly the boy drew his sword at his hip and lunged for her knee, unguarded. Faster than lightning, they saw her draw her twin blades, twirl them and sidestep her cousin, slamming the hilt of Nazt against his head. He stumbled, before catching his balance and smiling. A few words were exchanged in Haradrim, before they shook hands and she looked expectantly at her new father in law. He was about to get up and fight, when she smiled and motioned for Astrid to get up. The girl's eyes widened, and she clutched her axe in her hand.

"_don't be scared. I just want to know your name." Once more, her accent had flown, but the gesture touched those present. There was no warmth in the words, just as there was no warmth in her, but the language carried warmth for two.

"_Astrid. My name is Astrid."

"_will you fight me, Astrid?"

Collective gasps and shouts rose from the Haradrims, sending the Vikings into a panic. One of the Haradrims even stood up and walked up to Rezef, but the girl merely stared him down and he backed down. Her voice snapped, short and cold in the room, silencing the debates. Morfiil translated for the Vikings, amused.

"_it is a great honour than the one to be invited to fight. Especially by an Assassin."

The two girls stood at the centre of the U, facing one another. Astrid was clutching her axe and shield, whilst Rezef had her twin blades strapped securely on her back. Her hands were by her side, as she leant against a table. Astrid made a step forward, and suddenly the stance of the woman changed. Her foot slid to the right, her position swapping in the fraction of a second from relaxed to entirely guarded and tense. Her eyes seemed to pierce Astrid's soul. The saw everything without focusing on one thing, taking in every detail. She knew the layout of the tables. Could see every dent in the girl's axe she would use to her advantage. Astrid felt naked under her gaze, a prey quivering before its predator. Rezef was in the Time.

Each warrior has a Time. A rhythm at which he breathes, moves and lives. Understanding the Time and learning how to live in it was the key to being an accomplished warrior. Yet, Assassins learnt more than just living in the Time. They controlled it. The Time was theirs, because they were one with it.

Rezef felt Astrid's decision to attack even before the girl decided to. She sensed rather than saw her prepare to pounce, and immediately recognized she was planning to follow it up by a front flip, making her fly out of Rez's hitting reach. Astrid's hand subconsciously tightened around the handle of her axe, as she raised the shield a bit higher. A split second before the girl had begun attacking, Rezef had moved.

Her body had twisted to the right, the axe sweeping less than an iota past her body. With her left, she accompanied Astrid's swing, setting the girl's centre of gravity off balance. She watched, as the blonde still succeeded in her front flip but landed rather sloppily.

Her axe was now laid at Rezef's feet.

The girl picked it up, weighing it out in her hand before she grabbed the blade and handed it back to Astrid, handle first. The blonde took it, but with a pull from Rezef was tugged forwards. The Haradrim grabbed her arm and twisted, forcing the axe to clatter to the floor once more. She freed the blonde woman, before inclining her head to her.

Morfiil smiled, before turning to Hiccup.

"_Rezef seems to have taken a shine to the blonde. I am rather stunned –my niece is very secretive. It is good she has found a friend. Rezef will most probably invite her to be with you often, once she is settled."

Hiccup's eyes widened.

Something was going right. Rezef was his wife. She was meant to be possessive and unforgiving, as all Haradrims were. She was supposed to throw tantrums and order the best of him, expecting him to get her the moon and the stars whether or not he liked her –because she was his wife and that was the way it went. She was not supposed to encourage his relationship with the blonde, was not supposed to make it easier for him to cheat on her.

So what was she doing? Was she torturing him? Mocking him? Hiccup did not know.


	5. The Beginning of an End

The nuptial ceremony had been thrown off balance by Rezef's traditions as a Haradrim, and her occupation as an Assassin. It had been agreed with Stoic that, rather than for both of them to have sex together and be watched –which went against all Haradrim customs and decency, they would have six months for Rezef to show signs of bearing an heir. If she did not, the marriage would be void and declared such between the two people.

Rezef doubted Morfiil had agreed to that. He knew her. Knew the choices of her life as a woman of her Guild.

But Rezef was an Assassin, and she had an ace still up her sleeve.

Gothi had been chosen to come into the room, early in the morning and see if the tell tale signs of the consumption of marriage could be found. Swollen lips, bruised hips, scratched backs. Tousled sheets, unkempt hair, thrown away clothes. Rezef knew them all and she knew they could not fake them.

So that night, they fulfilled their marital duty –for the first and what she believed to be the last time.

She would have liked to say he looked at her as if she was the only thing in his world when she undressed. She would have loved to say he moaned her name in his blissful released. But he did not. His touch was gentle but void of feelings. His eyes were glassed over, and she knew she was not the one standing in front of him. It was Astrid.

So the Haradrim shut her mouth and pushed him onto the bed. She sucked on his neck as she undid his shirt, feeling his vein pulse faster and his pupils dilate. Pleasure. Her hands strayed to his pants, quickly unfastening them and tossing them somewhere. Hands explored the expanse of tanned skin, as she watched his eyes close and lips part in bliss. His breath became shallower, his grip on her slightly more bruiseful. Her fingers worked a little more, before she felt him tense. She smirked slightly, and bent her head to kiss his skin as her hands sped up. Her lips were sucking on that sweet spot right under the jaw when he flipped on onto her back, and in a smooth motion was hovering above her. His body was lean but muscular. She could see the result of dragon training on his figure, and her eyes could not stray from his face. His jaw, his eyes. Her hands knotted in his hair, a muffled, raw moan escaping from his lips.

He entered her.

Hiccup was, to Rezef's surprise, very gentle. She had had rougher intercourses with other men, and when he slowly began careful movements, she felt a wave of warmth spread across her stomach, riding up her chest. She closed her eyes a fraction of second, just enjoying his touch.

She knew the way of men, how to please them and cause them pain. She could make him moan her name in less than three seconds, but tonight, she wanted to be a wife.

For the first and probably last time in her life, Rezef wanted to be loved tonight. Held like she was the most important thing in the world. She did not want to be the Haradrim Assassin tonight. Only a woman, a loved wife.

She felt the coil in her stomach tighten, and her fingers began to work on Hiccup, massaging, scraping, and biting his back. She felt the sudden change in him, and suddenly warmth filled her again. He crumbled onto the bed next to her, eyes closed and chest heaving. His breath came in short gasps, and Rezef slowly closed hers to stop the tears from falling.

She was a Haradrim Assassin. Not a loved wife. She had taken life hundreds of times before. She was not lovable. She was an Assassin. The children of Death. She was Rezef Aath Golnaukhûn Bûrznûl Mornûl Morgûl. She knew the cost of love.

So why did she feel her heart break a little when he moaned Astrid's name as he climaxed? Why did it feel as if all her dreams crumbled?

He loved her. He only thought of her. Astrid had Hiccup. Hiccup had Astrid.

But who did she have?

She lay there, awake. His breathing next to her had evened out, and she could easily tell he was asleep. Yet rest was eluding her.

She was a child of death. She was Rezef. Named after the great dark mage Zeref who, according to the legend, tried to take over the world and resurrect the deads. She was Aath. A dog, a bitch. A bastard. A mixed race born from the union of a Haradrim mother and a Viking father. She was Golnaukhûn. The Steel Heart. She did not feel, never stopped unless her goal was accomplished. All who had loved her had died, and all those she had felt for, she had killed them. She was Bûrznûl. The Dark Pain. Poison or blade, all her victims suffered in silence before death took them. She was Mornûl. The Black Pain. She haunted their minds and her laugh was as their screams, reverberating in the soulless carcass her victims became if she left them alive. She was a Morgûl. A Black Wraith. She haunted the nights and prowled in them, hiding to pounce on her prey. She was your shadow in the comfort of your own home. The call of the wolf in the surrounding forest. The dark form of a Bûrztarbaam before they had been tamed.

She was death.

But she was not a wife.

Hiccup deserved much better than her.

She got up slowly, her feet bringing her to the window. The moon was shining feebly through the clouds. It felt foreign. The desert's sky held no clouds, and the moon always shone bright and big. Under the light of the night's sun, they would party until dawn broke. Merry fires would be awoken from ashes, girls would wear their best fabrics and they would dance and twirl in the moving shadows of the flames.

The Assassins would stand a little to the side, watching the people have their fun. Then, when one of them would be nostalgic enough to admit it, they would sit in a circle and share stories. They would not light a bonfire, but rather enjoy the light the moon gave them. Slowly, merriness would also find itself drawn to the Assassin, and a small sense of belonging to a family would be made. The Guild.

It had been her home ever since she had been five and her potential as an Assassin had been discovered. Ten years later, she was leaving behind first loves, stolen kisses and the comforting wind of the desert for wet grass, men who loved another and snow.

Above all, Rezef missed her dragons.

The Haradrims had lived in peace with dragons for as long as they could remember. Their dragons refused to wear a saddle, and all the people of the South respected and understood that. They were not bound to a place or a person, but most dragons had their favourite. Morfiil's dragon was a Red Death, and his wife's had been a Night Fury before they both died. Red Deaths were, by instinct, a chief's dragon. They were broad and dangerous, perfect killing machines. Yet, they were gentle and had a surprising soft spot for baby Oliphants. They absolutely loved them and would go putty just to make one laugh. It was actually quite sweet.

Rezef did not own a dragon per say, as her situation was a bit complicated. Dragons did not go near her with the intention to bond with her, but rather loved to spend time with her and recognised her as one of them. In her eyes, it was part of being an Assassin. Two of her fellow Assassins were treated as such by Oliphants, whilst four more were absolutely loved by desert foxes. Sometimes, one of them would end up bonded to a sand viper, which was quite tricky for the whole tribe as they were extremely venomous. Yet, ever since Bagashara had bonded with the Sand Viper, no one from their tribe had been bitten. It was to believe that the bonded ones were considered by the animals as part of their family.

And Rezef had left all of them behind. The new born Night Fury, the old Viper Head about to die, the Great Red Death of her 'uncle', the small Buzzer Bee of her cousin. She would never see them again, and her whole soul ached.

She did not love. She was an Assassin.

The ache dulled.

He was dreaming. Even with her face to the moon, she could see his eyes rolling behind his eyelids. He was dreaming of something good. Something sweet. His lips parted, and suddenly she heard a name on the silence of the night.

"_Astrid"

She looked away.

When the sun rose on Berk, she was still naked, standing at the window. Her eyes were on the outside and she barely registered the three knocks on the door. She went to answer it, her voice ringing through the thin panel.

"_who is it?"

It took her a moment of silence to reiterate her question, this time in Norse.

"_Gothi."

"_I am not exactly decent."

The door opened.

"_no less than yesterday." Replied the old woman, watching her new protégée walk to the double bed and grab to sheets to wrap around her. Hiccup was left bare, and she turned to the elder healer.

"_what can I do for you, Gothi?"

"_nothing, I know all I needed to."

Rezef arched an eyebrow, staring at the elder before Gothi turned to leave.

"_Gothi?" Rezef's voice called throughout the room. She froze, waiting.

"_can I come to you this afternoon? I would like to... do something with myself and I want to learn the way of Viking healing."

The elder smiled, her eyes softening.

"_I have been looking for an apprentice for a long time now. I would be proud to teach you my art, Rezef."

"_Rez. Rezef can be a bit of a mouthful." Her dragons had nicknamed her Rez.

She smiled, her smile toothless.

"_I will be expecting you at half past two this afternoon, Rez. We will gather forest herbs."

She left with a smile.

One of the forest green eyes cracked open, his pupil taking in his surroundings. He blushed at seeing his wife's arched back, feeling ashamed. Her black mane rolled down her caramel skin, some strands braided and closed by black, golden or blood red pearls. She turned to him, her eye immediately catching his. She nodded a hello, walking into the other room to get dressed.

When Hiccup walked down the stairs, he was surprised to see a golden head making him breakfast. His eyes widened when he saw Astrid. As if in a dream, his arm extended and his hand cupped her cheek. They were the only one in the world at that moment.

Rezef looked away.

After exiting their shared room, she had quickly gotten dressed and had hurried to Astrid's house, asking the girl to help her cook with a thick accent. Rezef was perfectly capable of cooking, but no one needed to know that yet.

The blonde girl had taken some convincing, but she had finally agreed to helping Rezef and soon a wonderful smell had taken over the dining room. She had smiled at Astrid, before grabbing a plate and sitting on the counter.

Very rarely did Haradrims sit on chairs, for they had no need of them in the desert. Chairs were cumbersome to travel with, and restricted movement when in a fight. Haradrims sat on fabric, laid out on the soft sand of the dunes. They slept within the arms of their mother sand, hidden from view in the red, black and golden tents. The dark night sky dotted by bright stars. The stories of the constellations, such as how Scorpio always threatened Leo with his spike, yet he never moved or how Virgo would carry on her back the weight of Taurus, yet never relent. The Haradrims lived in the stars, using them to navigate through the sands and relying on them to find water. If the stars were veiled, it meant sadness for the tribe. If they shone bright and clearly, happiness resonated for days on end and merriness was the word of the week.

But here, here the stars were odd. Here the life was odd. Harems were common in Harad, because men died on the path of war yet having an affair was frowned upon here. Rezef did not understand. No, she did. But she did not want to accept her fate. It meant accepting so many things which went against all she had ever been taught.

It would mean admitting she was human. But she was not.

She was a Haradrim Assassin. She was heartless.


	6. A Dance with Mythril

At quarter to twelve, just before her husband left to have food in the Hall of Fire with his girlfriend, Rezef came into the house. Both lovebirds were in front of the fireplace, and they suddenly pulled apart when she entered. Expecting shouts and yells, Hiccup rose hurriedly and tried to explain himself.

"_Rezef... You are home early..."

She eyes him blankly, before shaking her head condescendingly.

"_did you really believe I was that blind?"

Silence, and she began going up the stairs.

"_I don't care what you do, Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III. I don't care who you love, who you fuck." There was a gasp from both concerned, and she turned to them, her hand on the railing.

"_I'll be back tonight. Try not to get caught in between now and then. I don't whan to have to explain to your father it was a Haradrim tradition."

She left them, her leather boots on the wooden steps the only sound in the house, a small, ironically sarcastic smile on her face. Throughout her entire life as an Assassin she made up fake feelings, and the only time she had some she had to hide them... The irony was not lost on her. The Karma some would argue.

She pulled a dark green shirt out of her small bundle of clothes and a dark pair of trousers. Tightly braiding her hair, she clipped a facial scarf on and pulled her leather armour on top. Haradrim armours were less war time clothing than daily attire. Made of black leather for Assassins, red leather for men and golden leather for divine appointed people, they were worn at all time over their clothing. Children had some, Oliphants had some. Every member of the tribe wore it. The desert was a hostile environment. You only took what you yourself could carry and nomads were always at war. On the other hands, the Vikings were sedentarised. They grew crops and herded cattle. They had houses made of stones in which you could not see the stars in the night sky. They sat in chairs, and had floors of wood. They bathed in closed off houses and ignored the calling of the sea. They lived in a tight community, never moving.

It was all Rezef had never wished. 

It was the beginning of a new life. No longer as a Haradrim Assassin, but as a woman of Berk. As she put away her golden and red clothing, hardly discrete to move in a forest, she felt as if she was putting away a part of her. Golden and red, like the sands of her childhood, replaced by the greens and browns of forests. She looked down at herself, fingering the fabric of her headscarf. She would never wear it again. The wooden chest slammed shut, rattling through the house.

"_Rezef?"

"_What?" her voice was harsh and cutting. Hiccup stepped back, Rezef walking down the stairs. Her hand slid down the wooden rail, reaching the end knob. She stopped for a second, looking at the sphere before her eyes rose to their faces.

"_we will have to deal with the decoration. I want to be able to do as I please with the Southern half of the house."

There was a shocked silence, during which she made sure the twin blades on her back moved freely, rolling her shoulder blades. She checked all the daggers were in their sheath, assessing their sharpness and making sure they were fully clear of rust. Her hands were hovering everywhere around her body, checking independently from the other. Flashes of light shone in the darkness of the house, a myriad of sun droplets reflecting from the polished, black metal blades. The onyx handle seemed to distort the sun, reflecting blood red light onto her face.

Rezef was a Haradrim Assassin, and as all Assassins, this was her ritual. 

She met Gothi outside of the Elder's house.

The woman nodded when she saw her attire, a silent approval of her choice to change even after seeing her so for a week. Rezef swiftly took the basket from the elder's arm, a thoughtless reflex now. She fell into step alongside Gothi, asking, as she did everyday;

"_what is today's schedule?"

"_we are gathering dragon nip. I am still studying to properties of the herb and I am thinking of using it in beverages to help hinder the pain when we set a dragon bone."

"_it works, by the way."

She turned to her, her eyes wide. It was so easy to forget that in some places, Haradrims were more advanced than Vikings

"_how do you...?"

"_we have lived with dragons for the past decade. We have learnt to heal and care for them. Dragon nip is called Ghûlumbar by my people. Helping Herb. It was one of the reasons we befriended the dragons."

"_how do you prepare it?"

"_we do not. We smoke it."

There was a shocked silence, before Gothi carried on walking through the forest.

"_I assume Vikings are not fans of smoking herb?"

"_we do not smoke. Rather we prefer to drink and share in merriness."

"_smoking is a way like any other to share in merriness. We smoke from the same pipe, sharing as brothers and sisters."

Gothi shrugged, before bending and grabbing a small plant from the forest floor. It had heart shaped, flat, dark green leaves. On top of the plant laid a little flower, white and star shaped. It was a sweet thing, but one people often mistook for a weed. She showed it to Rezef, who took it in her hand. The smell was sugary, painless.

"_is it a painkiller?"

Gothi nodded, a small smile on her face.

"_yes. What made you believe so?"

"_the plant has a sweet and calm aura. Its energy is agreeable. It does not contain a poison."

Gothi's eyes widened.

"_how do you...?"

"_the energy flows within every living things. Knowing the energy is knowing the plant. Knowing the energy is being part of life. It is knowing life. The essence of it and the slow waltz of time."

There was a small pause, during which Gothi gathered some more flowers and put them in her basket.

"_people call it King's foil, a weed. Healers know it is in fact Athelas. A very potent healing herb."

"_Aztarbaam. Frenzy killer."

Gothi smiled.

"_yes. Part of its abilities is the power to ease someone's dreams into peacefulness."

"_Gothi..." there was an uncertain pause, during which the Haradrim caressed the plant.

"_I don't want to cause him pain."

The elder sat on a fallen tree log, her gaze on the Assassin beside her. She had been working with the girl for roughly a week, having known her for two and yet… she still had to hear of who she was.

"_why are you telling me this, child?"

Onyx eyes rose to the sky, a heavy grey storm cloud hiding her view.

"_I have always seen my path as a lone one. I am a Haradrim Assassin. We do not have families and do not follow orders. We are free as the wind, shapeless as shadows. So... Why? Why am I here, when the whole nature of me is somewhere else?"

"_no one can tell the purpose of one's life until it has been accomplished, and even then most have trouble seeing their worth. Do not fret. Not all destinies are lonely."

"_there is no such thing as "fully good" or "fully bad". There are shades of grey and for every good action, another equally bad happens. If I am happy, someone will pay the price. But... If they are happy, am I not bound to be the one to pay said price?"

"_you have never feared pain before. Why now?"

"_I have never feared physical pain. This is deeper. This is taking my soul and shattering it."

There was a thoughtful pause, during which Gothi rose and started walking back to the village, Rezef in toe carrying the heavy basket.

"_I want you to go to the academy tomorrow. I will go with you and install you there as their healer."

The Haradrim raised an eyebrow, her face an emotionless mask.

"_what do you hope to achieve by that?"

"_to give you a new goal in life."

Night had fallen long ago when Rezef finally made her way back to her house. She pushed the door soundlessly, her leather boots noiseless against the wooden boards. Hiccup and Astrid were still in front of the fireplace, talking hand in hand. She wordlessly went up the stairs to the room she shared with her husband and got undressed. Clad only in her trousers and undergarments, she began to polish her blades. As she had them shining and sharp, she strapped them back to her body. For the nuptial night, Rezef had agreed to be parted from them but this was it. Never again would the Assassin risk feeling as defenceless as she had that day. Her twin blades were still resting on her back when the muffled noise of goodbyes was heard from downstairs. She unbraided her hair, pulling her fingers through it. Gently massaging her sore scalp, she began to rebraid it, every single strand tucked away from her face. She finally unhooked her blades, Nazt and Matum and drew them from their sheaths. The double edged twin blades were unique weapons. They had been made especially for her when she had begun developing her skills. The swords were simple, and yet deadly. They consisted of four blades, two on either side of Nazt's hilt and two on either side of Matum's. Both sides of the blades were sharpened, meaning eight razor like edges. How many times did Rezef hurt herself before she mastered the art of her swords? Yet now, she was unequalled. When she fought, it was as if her body was protected by a shell of slicing iron. Her blades were everywhere and nowhere at the same time, protecting and attacking simultaneously.

The mythril began to hum in her hands, and closing her eyes she let the melody fill her.

With the dexterity of a cat, she got up from the bed. Eyes closed, she began to hum a slow, low tune. Her hands began a languid twirling motion, the blades entering movement. Soon, they gained speed and began cutting through the air. Rezef's humming increased, the tonality changing with the swipes and strikes of her blades. They were as the extension of her arm. Almost a part of her.

The humming increased, a savage and enticing melody. Her feet slowly began moving. Her strikes became less aggressive.

She was dancing.

The blades were still twirling and slicing the air, yet no longer did she appear dangerous. No. She was now deadly. Her body flowed like water, a smooth and uninterrupted movement. The swiping motion of her blade was no longer an attack. The graceful slides of her feet had stopped being stable. It was everything now. Her body, her blade, the sound. Everything was one in her. Blades were body, attacking and defending, stable and powerful.

The moon rays slipped through the open window. Tonight was clear, tonight was beautiful. Under the watchful gaze of the Assassin's mother, Rezef killed all her worries. One by one.


	7. The Golnaukhûn

When Hiccup entered the Academy, the day before the week's dragon race, there were whispers and sly looks. Sending a worried glance at the beautiful blonde next to him, he stepped inside the worn out arena, the early sun barely warm on his face. His eyes quickly assessed the situation, searching for something out of place. Tuffnut and Ruffnut were scaring the new recruits, so that was normal. Fishlegs was updating the Dragon Manual, and Snoutlout was...

Where was Snoutlout?!

"_Tuff, Ruff! Where is 'Lout?"

"_with the new healer of course!"

"_Gothi brought her here this morning. You might want to go see her..." suggested Ruffnut, a small smile on her lips. More worried than ever, Hiccup hurried to where Snoutlout's back was saying hello and tapped on his shoulder. The boy turned, his goofy grin of his face.

"_oh hey Hiccup. Ain't she beautiful?" he had a dreamy look in his eyes.

"_who?" asked the dragon tamer, looking everywhere.

"_her." 

A woman was kneeling beside a dragon, her back to him. Her double edged twin swords on her back immediately alerted Hiccup, whose hand shot forward.

"_Miss! Drop the weapons."

"_don't worry, Hiccup. I am sure I can deal with the dragon."

The thick, flowing accent immediately revealed to him the identity of the new healer. Hiccup's face went white.

Rezef. 

Her husband's face had been priceless. Only her facial scarf saved the woman's composure which twisted into a grin, despite her eyes staying hard. Her eyes were always hard. The Haradrim Assassin turned back to the dragon, who did not have such consideration of Hiccup's feelings and was grinning.

"_quiil!" she murmured to the Monstrous Nightmare. It snorted, but held still as she began to tend to her foiled wing. Some of the muscles had been pulled during the flight, the wing dislocating. Most probably because the saddle was too close to the wings. She turned to the boy standing a little away, his eyes worried over his dragon.

"_show me your saddle."

He scurried away, as if she was going to bite him. She sighed, before turning back to the dragon.

"_lorz shara." She chuckled. The beast grinned at the insult to its rider, the playful streak in all dragons popping up. The female dragon playfully pushed her with her head, horns lightly grazing her cheek. Rezef chuckled, before she petted the animal. Slowly making her way around her cranium, the Haradrim Assassin suddenly pressed down on one spot. The dragon fell to the earth, asleep.

"_Stand back."

And without further warning, she braced her feet against the scaly back and placed the popped wing back into place. There was a spasm, running through the whole body of the dragon before she laid still. Rezef looked at her for a second before she lifted her foot from the dragon's body and crossed her arms.

"_Ukhsûr."

Smoke came out of the dragon's nostrils, as if she was annoyed, before she grinned and flapped her now healed wing. Rezef smiled, bowing her head as to avoid her mirth being showed and when the dragon's paw came to grasp her, she jumped on the closed fist. Soon, she was staring into the amber eyes of the beauty.

Her hand slowly came in contact with the Nightmare's nostrils, her smile small and sweet. Her forehead came to rest against the dragon's, and for a second there was no one else in the room.

Then, as soon as the magic had started, Rezef jumped down from the dragon's paw and threw over her shoulder to her rider.

"_I will be back tomorrow. I am taking the saddle."

"_what? But I can't mount her then?!"

She froze in her track, turning around with a murderous aura.

"_her wing needs healing, unless you really wish for me to have to amputate both your arms AND legs for overstraining a dragon?"

There was a silence, during which she stared at the child, eyes hard and hands ready to draw her twin blades. The boy hesitantly looked at his dragon, expecting her to help him. She looked away, unable to go up against Rezef.

"_crystal." He managed to stutter. She looked at him coldly for another few seconds, before she strode out of the stall and away from those lorz shara, those stupid humans. 

Rezef was not displeased with the way those dragon riders treated their dragons. Most of them were very content with life here, and had declined being freed by the Haradrim. They argued that their humans came and gave them all the freedom they needed to cope with the little cages.

In truth, Rezef was quite impressed.

The Vikings did not have the technical knowledge of the Haradrim and had developed ways of keeping their precious dragons with them. In such fashion, some Vikings let their dragons into their houses at night and locked up the doors, meaning that the dragons would need to wake the inhabitants up before leaving. Yet, what was the real problem with the Vikings, in Rezef's opinions, was the saddles. They must have been stolen from the people south of here, but north of Harad for they were horse saddles the smith had widened. The only problem with the idea was that horses did not have wings, and therefore the saddle did not take in account the muscles and mobility there. It resulted in her kin being harmed every time they were saddled.

And Rezef was definitely not having this.

Gobber was surprised to see Rezef come to him. She seemed like an independent girl, someone who would take care of her weapons on her own and not require help with the sharpening and strengthening of the metal. He was therefore curious when the woman dropped the dragon saddle on his working counter and glared at him.

"_what is this?" she asked, her thick accent chanting the words.

"_well, clearly a saddle." He replied, cheeky.

He immediately noticed he shouldn't have when her eyes narrowed on his and she prowled forward, her twin swords half drawn. Her gaze steeled, and he stepped backwards with his hands in front of him, placating her. She swirled on her heels and approached the saddle and as she grabbed a small dagger from the side of her hip Rezef started drawing lines on the saddle.

"_the sides are harming the dragons' wings. They need more space for their wing muscles to work. All the saddles will have to be redesigned, or riders learn to do so bare back."

"_sorry, what?" this Assassin was telling him he was not doing his job properly?!

"_in addition, the leather is too heavy. Dragons might be powerful beasts, but you would increase their flight speed and agility by thinning down the leather. Once more, it would be best to learn bare back riding though."

She enclosed the dagger, turning to him. Gobber was about to reply to her verbal assault with one of his own when he caught her gaze. Her eyes were still hard, and her demeanour was predatory. Yet, she refrained from spilling the man's insides on the ground and strode past him, leaving the forge and its master behind. She would come back tomorrow when her mind was cooler and her demeanour less threatening.

After all. She needed those saddles. 

Rezef was unhappy. It went past the angry looks some of the villagers sent her as they walked past, reminders of the beautiful love story that was shared by Astrid and Hiccup before she arrived. It went past the seemingly heavy grudge people her age seemed to have against her because she had killed before. It went past the disapproving glanced elderly people sent her when they saw their dragons approach her and as she talked in the smooth tongue of the Haradrims. It went past the hurt she saw on Astrid's face every time she would come into Rezef's and Hiccup's bedroom and see the shared space. It was within her.

She was hurting.

Her, the steeled Haradrim Assassin. The women whom never loved. She was Golnaukhûn. The Steel Heart. She did not love. She did not feel.

And yet her heart was aching. Within her ribs. Within her soul. She felt empty, torn, used. Hurt.

She was in love. 

The realisation hit Rezef like the summer's sun hits an unprepared man. Her heart ached when she saw his hand in Astrid's. Her soul withered every night when she came back and witnessed his caressing hands in her blond hair. His loving mouth on hers. Her whole being shook when she caught a whiff of the three words, whispered in the small of her pale neck. When she caught drifts of his deep voice and her crystalline laughter. Anger bubbled within her when she saw her take him in her arms. When, giggling, she led him to the upper levels of the house.

She felt dead when she, the Haradrim Assassin walked up the wooden stairs of her own home to find the two lovingly entangled bodies in her own bed.

She felt buried when she saw the blonde woman push some of her war paint aside to put her hair ties.

She was gone when she saw him slip a ring on her finger, one night by the fireplace.

She did not feel a thing –dead people don't feel, when her father-in-law wiped away a tear as he noticed Hiccup's ring on Astrid's hand. 

She had stopped feeling when looked into the dark abyss of the sea and wondered how it would feel to plummet to her death.

Haradrims Assassins cried, like the human beings they were. Not often, not in public and they never admitted to it. But when they cried, it was tears of blood. A never ending stream of scars hidden in the burning sand. A network of streaks torn away by a gale in the night.

A dance of metal on skin, of screams on the winds. 

When she reached her house, late past the darkening hours of the sun, she saw Astrid's shape through the top floor window. The one of their room. Hastily, the curtains were drawn by a male hand as the blond was gathered into her husband's arms. The Haradrim's hand on the doorknob halted. She slowly let her calloused fingers slither over the polished brass, before she suddenly turned on her heels and ran.

She had shown weakness. Her hardened shell had begun to crack.

It was time for Rezef to go back home and have a long, long stay by her kin. They would strengthen her again. Harden the wimpy woman she had become. They would make her what she was. 

The starless sky of Berk was haunted by a dark shadow that night. A Black Wraith. No dragon left the ground, their wings forever folded against their bodies, their ears shielded from the agonizing roars of the black beast. It was crying, and its cries sounded like the maddened laughter of a crazy person. Like the howls of a dying wolf. Like the pain of a heartbroken woman. 

Rezef was ready to go by the morning. Her pack had been made earlier, when the sun was peeking above the horizon. She had silently entered her room, carefully avoiding looking at the happy couple on the bed. Her fingers were steady and assured when she noiselessly placed her war paint in her bag, and exchanged the forest green attire against her blood red one.

Her reflection had kept quiet when faced with the angry scars littering her body, a criss-cross of fresher and elder ones.

She was finally pinning her headscarf on, and about to cross the threshold of her home when noise behind her stopped her movement. A male voice, a bit raspy from the night, made her turn around.

"_Rezef..."

Steeled onyx eyes met emerald.

"_you did not come back yesterday."

She bit a sarcastic comment back.

"_and today you are leaving. I would like to know what is going on, in all honesty."

She stared at him. Her eyes were emotionless, her left eyebrow elegantly arched in a mock questioning of his motives. He took a step back, faced with her closed and guarded persona, before he felt he ought to justify himself.

"_I am simply worried."

"_how cute." Hiccup winced at the sarcasm held within her words. It was like biting in a lemon.

"_I am clearly going back to Harad."

"_what?!" his eyes had bulged, his face the purest expression of surprise and confusion. "Are you this unhappy here you are breaking the deal?"

Her face closed off all emotions she might have been displaying, her body language becoming aggressive. Hiccup slowly began retreating, his back soon finding the wall. She took a step forward, threateningly feral with her twin swords strapped to her back.

Then, as suddenly as the change had come, she regained control of her emotions and forced a calm indifference on herself. She rose in chin in defiance, before turning on her heels calmly and testing Nazt and Matum.

"_I will be gone a week at the most. I should be back before the end of the fourth day, if all goes accordingly to the years prior."

"_why... What is going on?" asked Hiccup, more and more confused.

"_the Warrior Tournament is about to begin. I will be competing in it again."

The door closed, a baffled Hiccup staring at the wooden plank. 

The word of her departure had made it to Stoic before she had even reached his door, and he was awake and aware when she knocked three sharp times on the chipping paint of his open door. She waited patiently in the entry hall, her body fading in the shadow with such ease he would not have noticed her had she not moved and talked to announce her presence as soon as he arrived.

"_Chief Stoic the Vast." She began. "I trust word of my business has reached you, and I request permission to leave immediately for Harad, and thus for the duration of the Game."

The man took two minutes of custom 'thinking', despite having already made his mind, before he declared;

"_you shall go, and all those who wish to follow you shall be welcome."

He saw her gaze harden, her quick mind piercing through his intentions to keep an eye on her, before she nodded and turned on her heels.

"_I will be presently leaving. Your dragons know the way to my homeland; they shall be able to bear the village when it is ready."

In the time of a second, she was gone and out of sight.

Her last comment was not a suggestion. 

Rezef's blood was boiling. This man. This Viking thought himself chiefly enough to impose his will to her?! A free Haradrim! Her hands had twitched to the handle of her beloved swords when she had heard the order in his voice. She would get revenge on Stoic the Vast. She would. And that day, he would regret ever believing her inferior to him. 

Mornûl flew restlessly above the Great Ocean, separating the village of Berk and the land of the Haradrim. By boat, it had taken the tribe four days to reach Berk, yet she would make it back to Harad in less than three hours. The dragon did not know fatigue or pain, being Haradrim trained and was able to fly the Sea of Nûrn and back without halts. Rezef trusted she would feel her beloved sands under her feet before night fell. 

Indeed, before the sun set behind the ever changing landscape of Harad, Rezef was back. Her kin had welcomed her with open arms, Morfiil even going as far as kissing her brow in a sign of welcome. New Assassin recruits bowed deeply before her, their index and major fingers going to their lips then to their foreheads. She was a legend to them. A name murmured in the silence of sleepless nights, when the teacher was gone and the boys wished to scare themselves silly. Her name, Bûrznûl, was the terror of naughty children. Parents and teachers no longer threatened with the Bogey Man, or the Big Bad Wolf, but rather with the silent shadow of the Morgûl. Her legendary weapons drew appraising stares from the youngest surrounding her, whilst the young adolescents wondered if they could take her on. Rezef was only sixteen, but she was a legend amongst her tribe. The legendary winner of the Warrior Tournaments.

Five years in a row, Rezef had held the title of Winner. She had come back to win it another time, to be the Ultimate Warrior. Only one other Haradrim had ever won the trophy five times, and it was her mother before her. Rezef would win it again. And she would be the Ultimate Warrior, winning where her mother failed and proving herself to both her tribe and those Vikings. She would be the winner. She would be the One.

She would show them what a Haradrim Assassin, an _aath_ worth nothing more than death, could do when you annoyed them.

She would be merciless. She would be heartless.

She would be Golnaukhûn, and proud to bear the name.


	8. Warrior Tournament

The Vikings arrived that night. They sat, a little apart from all the others whilst Rezef remained with her guild. In fact, they did not see her of the night. She was inexistent, and when Hiccup asked a Haradrim slave if they had seen Rezef, the look of sheer fear in the girl's eyes froze his heart. She scrambled away from him, apologizing if she had done anything bad and begging him not to punish her.

It took him ten minutes to calm the girl, and another five to get her to explain to him where his wife was.

Rezef had almost immediately gone to see the main governing body of her guild. She had pushed the flap of the council tent open whilst a meeting was held, and it was not without a tinge of satisfaction that she noticed her place at the left of the council's chief was still empty. She wordlessly strode across the ring, and sat where she had sat years before. No one dared contest her return to the assembly, especially when the chief beside her placed his worn hand on her shoulder. He nodded to her, to which she replied with her two fingers to her mouth and to her forehead, an Assassin's version of the traditional salute, and the council carried on as if she had always been there.

That night, Rezef was on patrol guard. The council Chief was sitting next to her on the top of the dune, his calm grey eyes and white beard making him the unspoken ruler of the Guild. Rezef had been as his child, his prodigy.

He and her mother were the reasons for which Rezef had become what she had become.

His voice pierced the silence.

"_are you happy over there?"

She let the night's sounds envelop them, the silence heavy after his words. As the first stars kindled the sky, she turned to him.

"_an Assassin does his duty, regardless of whether he is happy or not. My feelings will not hinder the task that was given to me."

"_I know what an Assassin does, Rezef."

His voice was hard. Biting. The softness of the following words hurt her more than what those could have.

"_I only worry for the girl under the tough facade." 

She let it all go.

All the barriers fell, as the first words rolled from her tongue.

"_it is hard to live a lie every day, you know?"

Her soulless eyes turned to him, and he saw the glimmering of hurt within the cold onyx eyes.

"_it is hard to see him, so happy with her, when all I do is fight. Fight for him, for his happiness regardless of my own. I am fulfilling my duty as a wife, putting his happiness before mine and his own comfort before me. Yet, he does not even cast a second glance towards me. I could disappear he would not notice."

She stopped suddenly. Words could no longer describe the immensity of her pain. She did not even try. Rezef let the silence talk for her, and he understood it all. He did not judge, did not talk. All he did was sit there and let her wordlessly empty herself of all feelings. Because he knew. When the morning light would come, she would put the tough armour of the Haradrim Assassin back on, and go back to pretending she was a heartless monster.

Truly, Rezef was more than any other a child of the night.

* * *

The Warrior Tournament of the Haradrims was a sight to behold. All members of the tribe, be they as far as Rezef, in the North, or as far South as the ones who managed the Southern Beacon of the World, came back for the occasion. Children were running everywhere, parents watching over them with a small smile. During the Warrior Tournament, all the grudges of the Sand People were put aside and hundreds of Haradrim Tribes arrived. It is so, that Hiccup was able to notice Morfiil seemed to be the unspoken ruler of the Haradrims, and his adopted niece Rezef was feared amongst all. The fearful look in the slave's eyes never left his mind and haunted his soul. Who was his wife, to be feared as such? He could see the different colours of the tribes, golden and red being Rezef's. The stronger the tribe, the more in accordance with the world their clothing were. Morfiil's tribe wore gold and red, ideal to hide in the sand. A tribe wore blue and yellow, and Hiccup suspected them to be a tribe from the shore of the Sea of Nûrn. The great Lake was very important to the Haradrims, as it was their most renewable source of the precious water they lacked in the desert. In fact, the Vikings were having a hard time surviving. They were used to much colder temperatures, ranging from 20°C in the hottest of summers to -30°C in the dead of winter. Here, in the Great Desert of Harad, there was no winter. The temperature ranged from 45°C in the coolest hours of the day to -20 in the hottest of the night. Harad was a harsh place to live in and its inhabitants were as harsh as their environment. It is what the Vikings discovered during the Tournament.

The night preceding the beginning of the Warrior Tournament, a large sheet of parchment had been pinned to the notice board in the middle of the circle of tents. Names had immediately begun to be written on the hide, and the excitation had not died until the morning. When Hiccup woke up, a large circle of excited Haradrims was surrounding the notice board. He approached, eager to see which events were held, when a huge silence settled upon the place. Everyone froze, people parting as to avoid a plague. Hiccup's eyes followed the path, eager to see who was creating such a reaction.

Emerald met onyx.

He froze. 

Rezef hid a smirk when her husband's gaze met hers. Had he forgotten she was an Assassin before being his wife? Most likely, he never even took the time to talk to her. She felt a surge of bitterness overcome her, and without all the self control her guild had taught her, she would have pounced on him and killed him. Without a second glance.

Her deft fingers picked the charcoal stick up, as she assessed the numerous events. Hand on hand combat. Weapon wielding. Archery. Dagger throwing. Horse riding. And finally, the one she preferred; Dragon Race.

She put her name down for all of them.

She would gain the title of Ultimate Warrior. 

As she let the charcoal pen drop from her hand, a deathly silence fell upon the assembly. Those intending to present themselves stepped back, refusing to risk their lives to keep their honour. In the ring, Rezef was not human. She was Bûrznûl, the Dark Pain. She was merciless. None who ever fought against her were able to fight again. She was a demon, protected by a barrier of sharp metal.

Nazt and Matum.

Her double edged twin swords were the weapons of a demon. Capable of fighting and defending at the same time, eight functional blades able to kill and injure twirling about one person.

She had always won. 

Hiccup took the pen to write his name down, and under the bewildered gaze of a hundred Haradrims, put five dragons to the starting line of the race. The six riders of Berk against Rezef. Sounded like fair game to him.


	9. Hand on Hand

The first event was the Hand on Hand combat. The sun was harsh, and the bodies of the opponents sweaty. An Assassin was first, against a sacred fighter of a lower tribe. There was no suspense for the public, no game. The Assassin won within the first minutes of the match.

The sacred fighter was carried out of the arena unconscious, whilst the left side of his jaw was splattered on the sand in little pieces.

The Assassin had not even broken a sweat.

Eventually, the games dragged on until the evening, when the very last match to be announced was the one opposing Rezef to a fellow Assassin. The man was a mountain of muscles with barely any brains and Hiccup could not help but wince when he saw the man enter the arena. He was bigger, more brutal than his wife. He was a force of nature. His worried emerald glance shifted to Rezef, who was casually laying down all of her weapons. Her movements were fluid. Her stance was wide and assured.

She was not afraid.

Their gaze crossed, and he saw a laughing assurance in her eyes. He looked away, Astrid's hand sliding in his own capturing his attention.

She had thought for a second he was worried, and yet when he looked away all the tenderness she could have felt vanished. Replaced by a cold, calculating anger. A feral grin appeared on her lips, a small piece of madness. Her guild's "father" noticed the change, his gaze becoming sharp like the one of an eagle. Rezef was out for blood, a silent hate burning in her. He saw her fist flex, her body become fluid.

As if she was water.

Suddenly, he knew.

Rezef was gifted. The most gifted Assassin he had ever trained. Yet, she had always lacked something. She was not in communion with death. Instead of being Death herself, she was death's weapon. Her steps were light as the air, yet not air. Her body was lithe like water, but not water. She lacked the will. The will to hurt, the will to kill.

Love had achieved his creation.

Rezef was the ultimate Assassin now. The wondrous killer. She had the skill, the experience, the craze and now the will.

She was his jewel. 

When she approached the man, she did not leave a footprint behind her. The sand seemed to dance with her, becoming one with the woman. Her body relaxed, to the point she no longer felt pain or thirst. When the man strode toward her, she simply smiled. Wild, feral and mad, she had become Death herself.

The man in front of her stood, rigid. His pose was flawless, yet she could see everything. She could feel everything.

The blood flowing under his skin, the sweat rolling in beads from his forehead. She could hear the erratic heartbeats of his heart; feel the very essence of his thoughts. She felt the electricity under his skin, the energy flowing like a wild stream. 

She knew before he did his next movement.

His right knee bent, aiming for her stomach. She pivoted on left foot, the knee passing millimetres by her skin. She placed a delicately calm had on his knee, and with a small hand movement sent the knee out. The man fell, misbalanced. He curled, turning his fall into a roll and got up immediately.

The arena was silent.

The man was incredibly slow to Rezef. She saw his right thumb and ring finger twitch, and immediately took a step forward, her feet sliding slightly to the left in the burning sand. The air from the punch grazed her face, as she delicately placed a hand on his vertebrae. Before his even realized, her fingers had twisted.

The Assassin fell dead on the floor, his eyes opened by surprise in the golden sand. He did not even have the time to understand.

For a second, the arena remained silent, shocked by the calm violence the woman they call Bûrznûl displayed. Adolescents who had never seen her fight before stared, mouths agape as elders who had trained her hid a content smirk.

It was only when she pivoted on her feet that the arena was shocked out of its stunned silence. The sand remained silent as she turned, her foot lightly grazing the grains. She bent to pick her weapons up, strapping Nazt and Matum to her back. She straightenend, a fistful of golden sand in her hand. She opened in, her fingers spreading. The sand rolled and flowed, like water between her fingers. What was unique just a second ago became multitude again, as she made to the exit. Rezef left under the deafening applauds of the ecstatic crowd.

Sat in the first row of spectators, her "father" rose, ever silent. A hidden tear of pride rolling down his weathered cheek.

She was his jewel, his most beautiful accomplishment.

She was Bûrznûl.

* * *

That night, a huge feast was held. Small lamps and fires had been lit, warming the night. Under the wide tents of the desert, all full of golden and red, people gathered for the beginning of six nights to be remembered. The guests sang and danced, as the warriors ejected from the competition were scolded by their tribes. Slave girls danced, their bodies gracefully covered by a veil of scented oil, making their every movements an enchantment to the richer men. Golden bracelets twirled and tingled, clicking with one another as their fine hands danced divinely. Rezef slid between two naked women, whose facial veils bore the mark of her tribe. She held two tankards of ale in her right hand, and made her way to find Gothi. She wanted to present to the Elder her "father", her mentor.

His tear had not been lost to her.

She was sidestepping another drunk man when the blonde head of Astrid came into her sight. Her heart clenched a little when she noticed her hand intertwined in her husband, and a vile bile came to her. Her left hand slid against the hilt of Matum, and she felt the trepidation of a fight in her vein. Her vision clouded, and her hold on her sword, on her friend, hardened with the adrenalin rush. Her vision darkened, but she felt a hand on her arm. Immediately, she recognized the smell of age, strength and wisdom. Her hand covered his when she turned a smile on her face.

"_ Traumogh..." which meant 'Teacher', the One who shows the Way.

"_Rezef... Who is this woman?"

Her vision darkened, as she took deep breaths in.

"_she shares my husband's bed, and has shared it for longer than I have been in their land."

"_a former lover?"

"_his only love."

Had they been alone, had she not been the Iron Heart, he would have hugged her. Here and then. Her eyes were faraway, her voice was thick.

She was feeling, was hurting. She needed a break, needed to escape her own heart. Her own love. She was denying herself what she ought to take, what she ought to have. She was ignoring her own heart for another, who did not even glance back. She had been trained to ignore pain, to ignore feelings. To kill or be killed. To fight or to die. She had been taught to think of herself first and then of others, and yet here she was. Making the brave choice. The Right choice.

The one that united her with the path of the Assassin.

She chose to let him become everything to her. She chose to give him everything. Her heart, her body, her soul. He held it all in his hands, had happiness within reach. He could have chosen her and she would have given him the world. She would have sailed the seas to gather him priceless presents. She would have cut her leg for him to have one. She would have loved him. He had her heart, her body, her soul.

But he stepped over them. Trampled them. Soiled them. He tore her apart, killed her. He shattered her hopes and left her to pick up shards.

And she let him. 

She let him torture her soul and kill her hopes. She let him shatter her heart and destroy her. She allowed him to touch her core, to feel within. She accepted him to feel her warmth, allowed herself to lower all barriers. She let him have it all, and let him keep it all.

Her father held her. Regardless of where they were, who she was. He gathered her in his arms and whispered those little words children love to hear.

"_I am so proud."

And she smiled. It illuminated the tent from behind her veil, her otherwise emotionless eyes sparkling with mirth. In that instant, there was only him in her in their world. No Rezef. No teacher. Just a father and his daughter.

The bubble burst when a drunken man bumped into the woman. The tent froze, as he began to stutter apologies. Her cold eyes settled onto his and a tremor shook his body. Her father's hand dropped from her arm, as she slowly turned around. He fell to his knees, now uncontrollably shaking. Nazt slowly crept out of its sheath and she licked the edge of it.

"_Nazt and Matum have been itching for some blood..."

There was a glacial edge to her voice. Before the man could beg again, his head had rolled onto the sand. A dog rushed to it, grabbing the fresh meat in between two fangs. It looked up to Rezef, whining and a sad look in its eyes. She held its gaze until the dog placed the head to her feet, submissive. Satisfied, the woman's sword kissed the corpse, slowly sinking before her. Rezef then turned around, the man's body reduced to little pieces and, her back to the carnage, went back to the party that had stopped.

The dog took its prize outside as others fought for the remains. 

She handed a pint of beer to her father, noticing his empty hands, before making a sign to a slave girl. Quickly, she was a given a chop, slave thanked by a nod of the head. The two mugs of beers now in her right, she motioned for her father to follow her.

"_there is someone I would like you to meet."

As predicted, her father and Gothi got on particularly well. She was pleased Rezef had had a father like figure in her childhood, and he was pleased of her choice of company. When the Elder told him she had chosen to become the Academy's healer, her Traumogh felt happy. Rezef had always been closer to dragons than humans, partly because of her Assassin ways. His eyes took a forlorn look, as he remembered the scars on her body and on her soul. That child had been a reminder for Rezef. A choice she had made, that showed her life is not something Haradrim Assassins enjoy. It is dark, and paved with deaths. It is sombre and lonely, and no one escapes the fate of the guild. It had made her what she was, had turned her into the woman she is now.

How long had she nursed the feeling she was not good enough?

Would it have ever shown had she not been married to this man? Never. It would have been hidden under a thick carapace of indifference. Assassins deserved love. Just like any other human beings.

Even if they were Death herself. 

The night was heavy for Rezef, as she spent it alone. Sleep was eluding her, and she found herself straying to the place where the dragons slept. A Bûrztarbaam was there, his emerald eyes open. She knew the Tarbaam well, for he could not fly without her husband. She remembered laughing when she learnt his name was Toothless. The Tarbaam rose when Rezef approached, its cat-like head coming to rub against the woman's. Her hand slowly rose to the neck, until both arms encircled it. She buried her face in the scaly neck, and slowly, her eyes closed. Silent tears escaped, some licked away by the pink tongue and others falling noiselessly onto the sand. As quickly as they came, the tears died and Rezef chastised herself for this moment of weakness.

"_I am a fucking Haradrim Assassin for fuck's sake. I don't cry! That's just stupid and pathetic."

The green, emotional eyes of the Bûrztarbaam looked at her, as she carried on.

"_crying is pointless. It won't do anything for me. I don't cry. I don't cry. I don't freaking cry. I am a Haradrim Assassin. I will win the tournament and become the legendary warrior. I will be stronger than my mother. I will be Rezef, and all will fear at my name. I will..." her head bowed, and the dragon licked it once more.

"_I don't want to be feared, Toothless." The whispered words still reached the dragon, whose head perked up. "I don't want people to fear me. I just want to be loved..."

She fell to her knees. 

In her wildest dreams and fantasies, Hiccup would have been at her side. He could have picked her up and carried her to a tent. He would have loved her and she would have been given back what she gave away. He would have whispered her name in his sleep, and not the one of another. His eyes would have caressed her body, and his hands sung her skin. He would have loved her. Her and only her.

But she was alone.

Completely and irrevocably alone. 

Rezef did not know how long she knelt there, in the warm sand. All she felt that night was the soft caress of the moon, the light breeze of the desert. The soft breath of Toothless on her skin, the biting embrace of the cold.

And the abysmal loneliness within her soul. 

She was standing on the edge of a chasm. As if the sands would part to swallow her whole. The dark abyss beside her made her dizzy. Her soulless eyes bore into the never ending darkness, its strange call pulling and tugging at her soul. She felt herself oscillate, and slowly began to fall. Her foot was about to leave the sands, as light as a feather in a stormy dance when she heard it.

The tinkling of loving giggles.

The tender voice of a heartfelt chuckle.

Astrid and Hiccup.

As if bitten by a sand viper, she shot up. Her spine straightened, her body tensed. Her hand rose to pet Toothless muzzle in a glacial goodbye and as the darkness swallows pain; she was gone in an instant.

Footsteps echoed on the now freezing sand, two interlaced bodies coming to the dragons for a midnight ride between lovers.

Hidden in the shadows, Death watched the two. Every love story needed its tragedy. 

How lucky, she was a walking Tragedy.


	10. Weapon Wielding (Welcome to My Life)

Another day rose on the second event of the Warrior Tournaments, the Weapon Wielding match. Bets were placed on warriors, and Hiccup was surprised to see much money on his wife. Every member of the audience seemed to have their opinion on the woman's skill, and especially where she learnt the wielding of such strange swords. Nazt and Matum were apparently very notorious in Harad, for every Haradrim he walked by had those names on their lips. Everyone seemed to have theories as to where Rezef got them; some suspected from an ancient tomb she profaned, others from riders of the East. Most seemed however to believe they were designed by her, as she advanced in the wielding of first a sword, then a double edged swords, then twin blades to finally combine both. One thing was sure; Rezef's weapons were the only one of the kind he had seen so far.

He was walking with Astrid when he saw Gobber, talking with someone who appeared to be the blacksmith of the Haradrims. They seemed to be talking swords, when he approached his mentor and asked;

"_Gobber, why aren't there any more people with weapons like Rezef's?"

The man seemed to think for a second and was about to reply to his apprentice when the Haradrim blacksmith spoke.

"_no one was able to imitate them."

"_what do you mean? The design is simple!" Gobber was lost, his incomprehension showing on his face.

"_the swords would be too heavy for a human to lift. Take this, for exemple." He drew his own, short sword from its sheath. Taking it in his hands, Hiccup found it lighter than any other he had ever handled. Yet, his arms still strained a little.

"_this sword is one of the lightest we ever made. Now, multiply the weight by four." The sword passed onto Astrid, who weighed it and looked to the man.

"_it would become incredibly heavy. Too heavy to carry around like Rezef does."

"_there is something in her swords, an alloy that makes them lighter than regular metal."

"_why did you not ask her, then?" asked Hiccup.

"_no one dared. Rezef disappeared on a mission, five or so years ago. She was barely nine then, and did not come back for two or three years. When she came back, it was as if her body had changed. She was lighter, quicker, faster. She no longer made a noise and carried those strange weapons on her back. Her Traumogh welcomed her back into the guild, and it is said she was on a diplomatic mission to create an alliance with the people of the East. No one ever questioned her, and she never mentioned those years in the Wild."

"_how do you know they are lighter if no one asked?"

"_we tried making replicas, and no one, not even our strongest warriors, were able to lift them."

"_but if she trained with them for two years, she would become able to handle them, don't you think?"

"_listen here, kid." The Haradrim's tone had changed. It was menacing and dangerous. "don't go messing about where you shouldn't. Why are you asking this to me?"

"_she is my wife, I had a right to know!" ah, the trump card. Gobber shook his head, when would Hiccup learn?

"_then go ask her instead of me. You don't look like much of a husband to me. More like a Darûkûrz."

"_Darûkûrz?"

"_a weakling." Rezef's voice was glacial behind him. He swiftly turned around, his eyes wide. When had she arrived? How much had she heard?

"_I do not appreciate to be spoken about in my absence, Blacksmith." The man bowed his head, a silent apology. "and I do not appreciate my status and relation to you to be waved around as a way for you to get what you expect, Hiccup Horrendous Harold III." Her voice was severe, unforgiving. "I expect the same respect I show to your name to be given to mine."

He stood there, dumbstruck. No one had ever talked to him like that since he had tamed Toothless and become the Hero of Berk. It was... refreshing...

"_sorry," he replied, sheepish. "I was only curious."

"_then I shall satisfy your curiosity myself next time." Thus, she turned around and left without a second glance.

"_well... home mustn't be too fun if she is like that everyday..." sighed Gobber, patting Hiccup's shoulder in pity.

* * *

The difference in the number of competing members for the Hand on Hand combat and the Weapon wielding was surprising to the Vikings. Less than a quarter of the first event's number was now enlisted to fight, which allowed the organisation to put in place a grandiose final, in which a royal battle would occur.

Rezef was called relatively early on the qualification, and as for the previous fight; the whole arena was captivated by the woman. She moved like she was one with everything around her, and when she faced her opponent, she displayed a serenity the man opposite lacked.

Then it hit Hiccup.

Rezef was the only woman competing.

* * *

The man opposite was fine. His musculature was efficient but not bulky, and he was an Assassin. Just like her. The worn leather on the handles of his twin blades suggested he was a seasoned warrior, and the callous cushions on his hands furthered her hypothesis. His hair was short and jet black, his brown eyes alert and agile. His torso was not as developed as the rest of his body, particularly his legs, and Rezef guessed his was more used to leg work than pushups. Her observations finished on his arms, where muscles could be guessed under the leather.

Her hands calmly reached for her own blades, strapped to her back whilst her eye found his. Her stare hardened, and when she drew Nazt and Matum out a little, she saw him pale. In a fluid motion, her blades were freed and crossed in front of her.

Her hold on them was oddly light, her energy flowing through the weapons. She could feel them come alive, feel the awakening of herself. There was no Nazt, no Matum, no Rezef. Only on entity, deadly and unforgiving.

Her opponent circled her. His twin blades drawn out, he slowly tried to work out her blind spot. Her weakness.

She let him.

His eyes unclothed her, his gaze burning her skin and making her soul scream out for revenge. He defiled her by looking at her. By believing he stood a chance.

Rezef felt herself grow light. She felt the surroundings fade, until all she could see was her opponent. No Hiccup, no Astrid. No revenge and no anger. Just him, a man she would conquer, vanquish, smash to the ground.

His left hand twitched, his twin sword swinging into action fast as light. It drew a golden arc, aiming for her throat. The blade was sharp, and the movement clean. Rezef would have died.

Nazt danced for her.

The razor like edge swung up, deflecting the twin blade with the flat edge of the upper blade. The lower one sung through the flesh, metal cutting through bone like hot wire through butter. The arm fell off.

The Assassin bit back a scream, his face scrunching up with pain and anger. Rezef slowly brought Nazt back down, calmly setting the blood stained blade by her side. Sand hungrily drunk the crimson liquid up, as the arm landed a few feet away from the Assassin. The man spit in the sand, and his hate filled gaze settled on her again. He began to circle her, his face twisted like an injured beast backed in a corner.

She saw a flicker of light in his eyes, a decision made in a split moment. Before the command had even reached his arm, before his fingers even tightened around the handle of the now lone sword, Matum was undulating. The lower blade decrypted a black arc, slicing through the carotid in his neck whilst the upper blade used the rotational momentum of her swipe to severe the other arm from the trunk.

The man was dead within seconds.

A heavy thump by his side denoted the arm hurling in the sand, and she saw the muscles tense and swing in a relic of life hidden in the arm. The appendage immobilized, dead on the hungry sand. Rezef brought the bloodthirsty blade back to her side, licking some of the blood off it. The lower blades crossed before her, as she relaxed her whole postured and stared at the victim she had slaughtered. The man had fallen to his knees, mouth open in fright. His eyes were wide with pain, forever staring into oblivion.

The arena gave her a standing ovation.

Nazt and Matum were still singing for blood when she exited the arena after her qualification fight. Fellow warriors strayed from her path in the desert corridors, the loud cheering of the spectators a distant dream. Rezef let her feet lead her to wherever, taking pleasure in the distinct fright others showed. She had not cleaned herself after the fight, had not even sheathed Nazt and Matum. They sat comfortably in her hands, the leather worn and crafter to its shape by years of use. They were a part of her.

Rezef reached the resting place of the dragons.

Toothless was there, his graceful head already looking at the door she would appear through. His bright green eyes were cleverly staring in her emotionless ones, silently asking for information on the Tournament. She laughed, freeing her friend who hopped over the fence. Nazt came to rest on his head, the dragon remaining unfazed by the occurrence. He had been introduced to both swords very early on in his meeting with Hiccup's wife, and had come to believe they were parts of her.

He even thought she slept with them strapped to her back.

Toothless gently grabbed the fabric of Rezef's shirt, nipping at it. She curiously looked at him, before giving a soft chuckle and closing her eyes.

A soft hum escaped her lips.

Rezef slowly began to twist her arms, both blades seeming gracefully deadly in the afternoon's sun. They swung slowly in effortless arcs, reflecting black and tainted a light that was pure. Blood coated them, absorbing all hope and energy of a better tomorrow.

The humming sped up.

Rezef's feet began to move, slowly increasing until she was dancing, her whole body undulating in a hypnotic motion. In the humming came snippets of words. Harsh Haradrims sounds and a singing accent. Her movements hurried, until her blades vanished. Rezef was now coated in light. It reflected off everything. The blood that had previously swallowed light seemed now radiant, the black blades made a myriad of light shows.

Toothless was enraptured.

Her rough, weathered voice slowly began the low sound of a war song, as her movements became more savage. Her feet left the ground, her blades moved too fast to be seen. Her eyes remained closed. What had been an enticing dance became a mortal hypnosis.

Rezef was the night. She was the quiet death. The violent murder. The merciless poison. The creeping doom. The masked suicide. She was death, night, darkness. She was everything bad in this world.

She was a Haradrim Assassin.

Toothless watched her, his rider hidden in the shadows. They watched the serenity take over her features. The anger vanish from her being. Until she seemed to only be made of sand. Black sand.

The shadows seemed to swallow her, even in the afternoon's sun. They seemed to draw her in, lure her to their holds. She danced with them, toyed with them until they caressed her body, carried her to the sky and lifted her higher than she had ever been.

She was the crow, flying high over the desert's dunes. She was the shark, swimming low within the depth of the Sea of Nûrn. She was the panther, prowling in the sand's shadows. She was the dragon, flirting with the highs and lows. She was the demon, hidden within their suffering.

She was Death, awaiting her victim.

She ended her dance on a breath, a low sound she held until she could no longer latch onto the peace she had felt. Her breathing was calm, her blades immobile in the air. She was in perfect harmony with the world around her, with the air and the shadows. She could feel the Death within her caress all the fibres of her being. Replacing the energy of Life with the one of Death until she was Death. Completely and utterly Death.

Her arms slowly lowered themselves, the blades kissing her skin. She felt the cool touch of the edges on her arm, the soft caress of their love.

Toothless nudged her, having patiently waited for her to come out of her trance. She turned her eyes to him, her face breaking into a smile.

"_hello again, handsome."

The scales were cold under her hand, smooth and deadly. She felt at home touching them, like she belonged. Toothless' pink tongue shot out, spreading on her face a thick layer of saliva. She tried to look serious or scolding for a second, before failing and laughing along with the dragon. Her hand petted him, his eyes closing in a purr. She giggled, something she hadn't done in a long time, and scrunched up her face with a yawn.

"_I am feeling knackered. What do you think?"

Immediately, Toothless rolled onto his back and lay down, as if dead. She laughed, before spreading across the beast's belly. It let out a small laugh, and she snuggled up to the cool animal. The low vibration started again, spreading through her whole body. Rezef closed her eyes, and slowly, the heartless woman fell asleep.

* * *

Rezef's senses were alert before she opened her eyes. She felt, rather than heard the hand about to come down on her shoulder, a man's hand. She could hear his heavy breathing and smell his musky odour. She heard the air shift about him, his arm rise high above his head. She tasted the metallic odour of steel on her tongue. His arm came down, aiming for her head.

In less than a second, her left foot had shot out. Nazt had slid from its sheath, landing in her outstretched hand. The man stumbled, and before he even had the time to realise he was falling, the mythril blade had severed his hand.

The dagger fell to the floor, still grasped between clenched fingers.

Matum came out of the sheath, the sound deadly to the man's ears. His eyes met hers, and she saw a fearless determination. A paid Assassin. Hers hardened, not feeling anything. She saw him clench his only remaining fist, and a smirk drew on her features.

"_who paid you?"

No sound. Her eyes bulged, fully open in madness. Her pupil shrunk to a slit, looking every part the feral legend she was. Matum danced in the oncoming darkness, as blood splattered on the walls. His head hit the floor with a dull thud.

Rezef turned to Toothless, who was slowly stirring. The action had taken less than a minute, a breath of time.

The royal battle wasn't much. By the time she had reached the amphitheatre (late due to her searching the body of the Assassin and scaring people into telling her who he was), there were only three other remaining participants. She stepped in the arena, silently appearing from the shadow. The three remaining fighters stopped their duel, watching with rapture as she lifted the head of the Assassin who had tried to kill her and looked around the amphitheatre.

No words were needed.

A low hum of disapproval rose through the stadium, a wave of shouts and angry brawls slowly seeping through the ranks until all stood but a small, secondary tribe. They were clothed in oranges and brown, Haradrims from the coastal side of the desert. They had paid the Assassin to end the woman in her sleep, their own fighting Assassin having made it through the qualification round of the Weapon Wielding event. Rezef showed no pity.

She prowled towards the man, silently motioning him forwards to come and greet her blades. Her eyes held the one of the tribe's leader, as she motioned them all to come down. The crowd cheered as their twenty fighters entered the arena. From the corner of her eyes, Rezef spotted the two other competitors silently leave. They did not wish to be caught within the crossfire of the match and would more than happily fight one another for second and third place once she had finished slaughtering ever single man from the coastal desert.

She was mad. She was angry. Rezef was ready to kill.

The crowd cheered and urged her on, as the twenty opponents surrounded her. She watched them draw their pathetic swords, watched them silently encircle her in the hope to swallow her under their number.

But Rezef was not going to die. Not today.

She was still humming from her earlier kill, her veins still pumping the adrenalin of death. The Time was open to her, welcoming her with such ease Rezef felt as if she was blind. She saw everything, could feel everything, hear everything. She felt their pulse, their erratic heartbeats at the thought of meeting death. She felt their anxiety and anger, the fear to leave their families behind.

But Rezef felt no pity.

When the first man charged towards her, blade held high and a fearsome war cry on his lips, she danced. Nazt twirled in her hand, still tainted by the blood of the earlier man and as she dodged his blow, she drove it through the stomach of the man standing behind her. She unhooked Matum, a silent count in her head. One down, twenty to go.

She arched her body out of the way of a sweeping blade, parrying a blow from the left with Nazt as she twirled Matum through two carotids. Eighteen. She jumped onto an oncoming blade, pushing the wielder to the ground and landed onto his neck. Seventeen. Nazt drove through a man's stomach as she was rising again, the second blade flipping to meet a man's leg –cutting open the major artery there. Fifteen. Rezef could feel the blood pounding in her ears, her heartbeat the sound of the Time as she felt elation course through her. This was beautiful. The path of the blood as she cut a man's arm off, burying Matum to the hilt in his guts, reminding her of the water springing from rocks. Her feet danced in the sands, the eight blades spinning around her as a shield of mythril. She parried a blow, sidestepped another and watched two men gut each other, lunging for where she had been a second before. The ten remaining men paused briefly, and she took the occasion.

Nazt and Matum weren't straight blades. They were curved, slightly. Because of the light curvature, they turned over a hundred metres and came back, five metres to the right of where the thrower had been after five seconds of flight if tossed at the right speed. Naturally, since she was going to use the arch in order to kill people, the trajectory would be slightly off.

The thought remained, though.

Nazt shone under the sun.

The twirling blades aimed straight for the throat of a man slightly to her left, digging in his neck. Their course were diverted to the right due to the resistance, flying straight to cut another man's arm. Nazt's path further bent to the right, completing a turn and aiming for the back of another man's head, five metres to the right of where she had been.

As soon as Rezef had thrown her weapon, she sprung into action. Matum curved to gut a man on her left, and she used her momentum to propel herself against him, jumping onto a man three metres away. They rolled into the sand, but Rezef was the only one to get back up. She ploughed through another man and reached Nazt as it was burying into the fourth man's neck. She accompanied her blade's movement into the spine. His death was immediate.

There were three men left.

They looked at one another before charging towards the Assassin as one. She ducked the first one, her shoulder ramming into his stomach and winding him. Nazt blocked the second and third, pushing their blades forward and forcing them unguarded. She felt the first man, the one she had winded, get back up behind her and a maddened scheme flourished in her head. She allowed him to charge at her, letting him come a heartbeat away from her before she slithered out of the way, to the right and watched the show.

The man she had winded rushed forward, carried by his momentum and drove his blade into his friend's stomach. However, the two men she had blocked had not envisioned she would do such thing, and had been pressing down onto her. As she had been standing directly in front of the man that was now impaled, the one Assassin she had winded was in the exact spot she had been.

The two blades Nazt was blocking did not encounter resistance anymore, and had carried on travelling downwards. The Assassin that had tried to kill her as she had her back turned to him died, both his friends' swords imbedded in his scalp.

There was only one man remaining, from the original twenty one.

He looked at her in fright, his sword blocked in his friend's brain. The arena was screaming in adrenaline, the man and women in the stands shouting and screaming their approval at the display of violence and blood Rezef was giving them. His hands shook, as he gave up on his sword –trapped under his friend's, and drew the short dagger he had strapped to his thigh. Rezef prowled towards him, and the coastal Assassin lunged. Rezef pushed him back with the flat edge of Matum's blades against his torso, Nazt sending the dagger in his hands flying away from him. She inclined Matum slightly, forcing the man to kneel before her lest she slit his throat. Nazt came to rest across her sister blade, and Rezef watched the Assassin's eyes plead her for his life as her blades sat crossed on his shoulder, reader to scissor off his head. The crowd roared.

Rezef closed the gap in cold blooded knowledge.

Blood flew onto the arena's sand, the floor already sick with the one seeping from the twenty other broken bodies. For a while, she watched the stream of red spring out of the severed carotid like a geyser, rising high in the air –a sign for all to see. She was Golnaukhûn. The steel heart.

Cold black eyes crossed horrified forest green.

* * *

Welcome to my life.


	11. Archery Aim

**Hey -here Hellsig,**

 **First of all, before I let you get on with the story, I would like to thank the one to have written the Guest Review. I truly loved reading what you thought, and although the chapters were already written by the time I got your comment (which made me grin like an idiot for a good fifteen minutes) I hope you'll forgive me for putting Hiccup's chapter of angst a little bit later than what you would have, maybe, liked. Thanks though! I hope the rest carries on entertaining you!**

* * *

The Archery Aim contest took place directly after the Weapon Wielding, due to the fact that beside Rezef, only one other person had put their name down for the Horse Riding event, said person having been killed in the Tournament. Therefore, Rezef won this area of the Tournament by default, which left a bitter taste in her mouth.

She wanted to fight for her victory. Not to have it served to her on a silver platter!

Archery had always been something Rezef hadn't been at ease with. However, with time, she had learnt how to handle a bow and arrow and she had become rather famous upon her return from the Wild for her technique, "Poison Rain", which consisted of sending a wave of arrows, generally three or four in one go, whose tips were coated with poison. Fired in rapid succession, the shower of arrows could take out a small party without a problem.

Every year, the archery competition changed. People came to the amphitheatre not to see people win, but rather to see bloodshed and war. They came to feed on the rasp of the dying, and a traditional archery contest rarely offered this. Therefore, the organising bodies of the competition made sure to create something as bloody as spectacular year after year. During the previous tournaments, Oliphants had been let free in the arena, and each archer had to kill the others, very much like in the final of Weapon Wielding. However, they had to be careful of the Oliphant. Each archer had been given the exact number of arrows, corresponding to the number of participants. There wasn't room for mistake.

Rezef had missed one. He had been squashed by an Oliphant as her arrow was released. This year, she would kill them all.

* * *

For this event, the organising body had outdone themselves. Great wooden palisades had been placed through the whole arena, separating the entire space into a labyrinth. From the sounds she could hear, Rezef guessed hungry desert beasts had been let free in the maze, such as Southern Sphinxes, or Coastal Chimeras. Those anthropophageous beasts were vicious, and even though Rezef had fought them before never had she with a bow and arrow.

This promised to be an interesting event.

There were only five competitors for the Archery Aim, seven other having been killed during the Weapon Wielding or the Hand on Hand. The Assassin was led to one of the many entries to the labyrinth and handed a bow. She watched the man with the arrows come forward and recognised him as a councillor of her 'Uncle'. Rezef was given one single arrow.

The labyrinth's door opened.

Before rushing in, Rezef tested her bow. She tried the tension in the string, pleased to find it strong and sturdy. She drew the weapon with little problem, her muscles used to the heavy resistance of blades through bodies. Satisfied with the simple, black painted bow, Rezef silently moved inside the labyrinth. She quietly watched around her, estimating the height of the walls to be at two and a half metres.

They were clearly made to be climbed.

Rezef squeezed herself against the side of the opposite wall, judging her running start to be of about two metres. She coiled against the side of the corridor, before shooting off, across the floor in one jump. She kicked the side of the labyrinth, which shook, and was sent flying across the two metres she had just ran towards the top of the starting wall. Her fingers securely hooked over the edge, and she grinned as she pulled herself up.

Quickly, the Assassin pressed herself flat against the ten centimetre thick planks. She was only too well aware of how noticeable a silhouette was against the Haradrim skies. Quietly, she watched the lay-out of the labyrinth, committing it to memory.

From where she laid, Rezef could make out the top of three people's head. This meant that a fourth one was missing. She could also spot the tip of three beasts' wings –most likely sphinxes and the flat reflection of the sun on one chimera's head. Rezef was about to start crawling in the direction of one of the men, when she heard shouts of pain coming from the eastern side of the labyrinth.

The fourth man was no longer a threat.

The Haradrim Assassin clicked her tongue in annoyance.

Rezef quickly calculated there were one beast per competitor, meaning most likely that each beast would stop moving to fest on the flesh of each man it had killed. Rezef supposed that was why each person was only given one arrow. Either you won and could take the arrow out of your beast or you died.

She however, didn't plan to play by the rules.

Rezef slowly began to crawl across the wooden planks, keeping the three remaining heads in her vision. Silently, she snaked her way nearer and nearer to the only holy warrior to have entered this event. His bold head was shining with sweat under the sun, and Rezef could see his arrow still in his hand. He hadn't come across a beast yet. Perfect.

The man didn't stand a chance against the Assassin. She crawled as near as directly above his head, a god given shot she could not miss. She didn't. The arrow imbedded itself in the man's neck, piecing the nervous system in the spinal cord and killing him instantly. He fell down into the sand without a sound. Quietly, she snuck down her perch and retrieved both her and his arrow. Armed now with two, Rezef pulled herself back up the planks.

The two heads were still where she had left them, having stopped moving when they sense the aura of death. Rezef however did not mind. If they no longer moved, then they became easy, still targets. She drew her first arrow and, carefully breathing in and out in a controlled way, comfortably installed herself on the planks. Rezef closed one eye, the other looking along the length of the arrow, directly aiming it at one of the men's mop of black hair. She waited, silent, until he turned around to be facing her and she shot. The arrow found its mark, embedding itself so deeply into the man's skull only the feathers at the end were visible. The Assassin fell to the ground with a cry of pain, alerting the other man still in the labyrinth.

The last warrior spun around himself, panicking slightly as he heard a sphinx's shrilly scream echo through the air. He began to move frantically, breaking into a sprint. The Assassin smirked at his idiocy. He was running straight towards her. She had a free shot of his face on about five metres. From where she stood, he appeared to be entirely still.

In one movement, Rezef grabbed her last arrow, drew, aimed and shot.

She watched it sail through the air, cutting the winds with careless grace as she black feathers spun and vibrated. She looked on, morbidly fascinated, as the brutal arrowhead mercilessly made contact with the man's eye. It drove through the ball, imbedding in the brain and Rezef watched the young boy –for he was no older than her, run for a few metres still before he crashed down onto the ground, driving the arrow further in, and didn't get back up.

She had won.

* * *

Rezef didn't attend the party this night either. Rather than having to cope with the endless chatter, the sideways look from people and the reprobate glances from the Vikings, the young girl decided to take food from the tent and directly sitting on the sand itself, to enjoy the cloudless night and recall the stories of the stars.

Toothless was sitting next to her spot by the dune, when she emerged from the tent with food for two. She tossed the dragon a nice, raw fish and placed her own cooked salmon onto her plate. She had a few dried fruits on there, one or two root plants from the desert and a lot, a lot of salted, dried meat that had been conserved all year round for this occasion. She also had a tankard of ale and a bowl of water for Toothless. She didn't doubt Hiccup's ability to take care of the dragon, but she knew how harshly the sun of Harad could shine during the day and a little bit of water was never refused.

Silently, the Assassin buried herself into the still warm sand and looked up to the dark fabric of the universe.

Many stars stretched there. Crux, Leo and Scorpio dancing together, as the Centaur seemed to loom so low on the horizon. Rezef had missed them, ever so much. Her eyes turned to the "W", silently welcoming Cassiopeia back into her life.

The first time she had learnt of Cassiopeia's fate, Rezef had been four. It was customary for all children of Harad to learn of the stars, as it was their only way to navigate the immense ocean of sand. She recalled being fascinated by the stories of ancient worlds, where gods still listened to humans.

* * *

Cassiopeia was a queen of a faraway land, a long time ago. She was married to a kind man, the king of a land called "Crete". Cassiopeia and her husband had a daughter, most beautiful girl whom they named Andromeda. However, with great power often comes great foolishness. As Andromeda was sixteen, becoming a woman and blossoming into her full beauty, queen Cassiopeia had the audacity to proclaim that she and her daughter were more beautiful than the Nereids. The Nereids were daughters of the sea god, women whose hair was as smooth as the waves, as ondulating as sea weeds in the current and whose voice was as the singing on the sea, calm and peaceful yet able to roar and crash ships. They were some of the most beautiful Naiads, and their father was by no mean humble. Therefore, when he heard what the mortal queen had spoken, this god of sea entered a fearsome rage and from the deepest recesses of the abysmal ocean set free a sea monster; Cetus. He sent the giant sea-serpent to flood the lands of the king, eat the travelling ships and break plumes of blinding spray against the Bronze gates of the capital. Soon, the country of the king was in famine and he and his wife had no other choice but to seek the council of the Oracle of Delphi. They set forth for the journey, reaching the Oracle who told them Cassiopeia's words had angered the sea king, and his beast would not be calmed by anything other than the blood of Andromeda, their only daughter. The child was to be tied to one of the rocks outside the gates of the city and left there, naked, for Cetus to eat. Only then, would the monster be satisfied and go back to the deepest recesses from whence he came.

Their broken souls had no other choice but to agree to the bloody solution, Cassiopeia faced with the harsh consequences of her thoughtless actions. Andromeda was stripped of her garments and tied with golden chains to one of the rocks outside of the city, left alone at Cetus' mercy.

But fate willed it, that she would not die that day.

A man, a hero named Perseus was flying on Pegasus, making his way back from killing the Gorgon. He held the creature's head in a bag, which he had clutched in his hands for the Gorgon Medusa's eyes had retained their deadly powers of petrifaction even after her death. As he was flying above the troubled waters of Crete, Perseus saw the white skin of Andromeda against the dark, wet stone. Her golden hair was flying in the wind as the elements beat down onto her. Taking pity of the stunningly beautiful woman, Perseus stooped down low on Pegasus and freed her from her golden chains. As he was saving her, the great sea-serpent Cetus rose from the sea and bared its mouth, ready to swallow the two young heroes. Perseus drew Medusa's head out of its bag and one glance was enough for Cetus to be petrified and turned to stone. Unable to sustain its weight, the statue of the monster shattered and sunk to the deepest recesses of the sea. The skies cleared and the waters calmed, as Perseus flew Andromeda back to her parent's city and palace in order to ask for her hand in marriage.

Their happy ending was granted.

However, the god of the sea felt as if he had been cheated by those mortals, for Cassiopeia did not, in the end, lose her daughter. Therefore, he brought his case before the assembly of gods and it was decided that, rather than making the daughter pay for the mother's deeds, Cassiopeia would have to answer of her own actions. The queen was tied to her throne and cast high in the sky, so that she would have to spend half of the eternity upside down in the cosmos, bound forever to remember her pride.

And thus was the story of Queen Cassiopeia.


	12. Dagger Darts

The Dagger Darts event was another one of those impossibly dull and boring ones, which the public loved and hated all the same. Twenty competitors were entered in the event, all of them showing dexterity and skills on daggers of different sizes, weights and even material. Rezef's own daggers had made a name for themselves in this event, being smaller replicas of her swords. Nazt and Matum were lighter than normal daggers, having their centre of gravity so precisely in the middle of their length they granted Rezef utter and complete stability in throwing. The Assassin was used to them, just as she had become used to the longer, double edged twin swords. The dagger forms of Nazt and Matum were strapped to the outside of her thighs by bounds of black leather, both exactly at the height of her hands. Rezef could in one move draw and aim her daggers, as well as unsheathe her swords. She had practices that very routine many, many times when she was in the Wild and had come to know it so well it had now become an instinct, something the girl did when waking, even before her eyes had opened. It had saved her life more than once.

Last year, the dagger throwing event had been the one Rezef had excelled in, having trained to kill in the night since she was a child. All competitors had been gathered into the centre of the arena, where they had been led into a wooden box, pitch black. Each and every single competitor had been trapped there, and when the whistle had blown from the outside, all hell had broken lose. They had one minute for there to remain one person.

Daggers had flown all around the box, people tossing them around in the hope to hit someone. Rezef had waited. She had patiently held her breath, her body so still she was one with the shadows until the panic had faded and there was only one remaining competitor. Then, her movement as sleek as she shadows she was drowned in, the woman had unsheathed in complete silence one of her lesser daggers. She had tested its weight in her hands, dexterously grabbing the blade as she judged the man, her enemy, her prey to be five metres to the right of her. She could hear his laboured breathing, his anxiety as he waited for the predator in the shadows. She heard the sharp sound of a dagger piercing the air, the dull sound of the blade hitting the wood.

In one silent movement, she had uncurled her arm and thrown her black mythril blade. She had watched –heard, felt it sail through the darkness, had sensed it embed in the flesh and with a content smirk had witnessed the silence. Bada. Bada. Badabump. Bada. Bada. Badabump. There was only one heartbeat left, one heartbeat and one smile.

However, this year, the organisers weren't this clement.

* * *

Each competitor was allowed to bring four daggers in. They were placed, one after the other, inside an area which had been delimited in the sand. The circle created by spilling blood onto the arena was small, barely a metre in diameter. Each competitor was told to stand there, whilst three ropes were shown to them, each twenty five, fifty and a hundred metres away in a straight line. Each rope was linked to a black iron gate, which would crash down ten, five and two metres away from the person, each blocking the entry of one of the three corridors which converged towards the centre of the arena, the ring of blood. Rezef understood very quickly what each corridor was for, when she heard the roaring of Lothian Lions. They were fierce beasts from the forest which stretched north of Harad, the frontier between the deadly desert and the hostile jungle. Upon the beginning of the task, all three lions would be set free. With each lion rushing down its corridor, the competitor would have to sever each rope leading to each gate. First the twenty five, then the fifty and then the hundred. The longer the competitor took to sever the rope, the further the lions would get. If he failed to cut the ropes, the man would be mauled to death by a hungry lion.

It was, as with all the other events, do or die.

The first person to go up against the Lothian Lions was a young earthly warrior. He must have been a freed slave, for his apparel was of red –but he was young. Too young to be in the Warrior Tournament. Too young, far too young. Rezef watched him, full of the assurance of youth. She watched as the starting whistle made him jump, watched as his dagger flew true and hit the first rope. The hungry roar of a running lion threw him off balance, and he missed the second rope. His dagger sailed past it, embedding itself far off the mark, deep into the sun kissed wood making up the arena walls. The boy inhaled deeply, steadying his hand as he refused to glance over his shoulder. Rezef watched his lips murmur something, as he gripped the dagger into the throwing position and sent it to sail through the air. His eyes closed, awaiting either the dull throb of the metal against the wood, sign of his failure or –the rattling of metal as it fell down made his eyes open wide in surprise. He had hit the fifty mark. The gate slammed shut right in front of the beast, its snout colliding with the metal squares. It roared in annoyance, watching its prey stand five metres away from it, so out of reach. The boy glanced over his shoulder, seeing the very last lion rushing down its corridor.

He wouldn't have the time to throw the dagger.

The boy looked down at the weapon in his hand, and then back up to the rope, faintly seen in the distance. He wouldn't have the time. He gripped it harder and turned on his heels, meeting the lion headfirst.

The crowd roared, angry shouts drowned by the cheers of those looking forward to the bloodbath. No one have ever fought a Lothian Lion with a dagger and survived. The boy was doomed to die, but he would die fighting. Like a true Haradrim. Rezef watched, as his eyes widened in fright when they caught sight of the rows of sharp, yellowing teeth. Spit rolled down the animal's beastly mouth, flying off in the wind as the jaws opened into a deafening roar. He watched, mesmerised as the lion's rolling muscles tensed under his sleek, golden fur. The beast sprung up in the air, jumping high, arching towards its prey. The boy forgot to raise his dagger in a parody of defence, as the mighty beast's fanged jaws crushed his trachea, grinding bones and tearing off the head. A geyser of blood shot high in the air, the stadium erupting into heated applauses. The boy had done well, his tribe was proud.

He would never get to feel the fame, though.

* * *

Rezef was the last contestant to go. No one had so far been able to hit the hundred mark, and the blood of many was littering the floor of the arena, causing the sand to overflow with the liquid. Rezef's boots seemed to sink into the bloodied ground. The girl made her way to the circle which had almost faded over the course of the event and waited for the signal to begin, her eyes silently trained over the shape of the three ropes, aligned one beside the other. Silently stroking the metal, her fingers slithered over Nazt and Matum. Rezef watched, tense and ready as the man brought his whistle to his lips and blew sharply.

The hissing of paws on sand was deafened by the sound of two metal gates crashing down onto the ground, Nazt and Matum having hit the twenty five and fifty marks respectively before the shrill sound of the whistle had died. Silence took over the arena as the daggers began to spin and curve, making their way back to their owner which caught them. Rezef silently breathed in and out, sheathing the two again. She cracked her neck, not doubting her ability to kill the Lion if it came to this. She had done it before, though not with daggers.

Her breathing evened, as she closed her eyes. She felt, more than she saw, the tense rope a hundred metre away, she watched it strain against the weight holding it down, watched it whimper against the heavy weight of the iron gate. Rezef's hands caressed Nazt and Matum, wrists flexing with the dexterity of a cat. She felt the sand shift, could feel the slight breeze breathing through the arena.

In one fluid motion, Nazt and Matum burst out the their holsters, kissing the tanned lines of Rezef's wrists and with the accompanying flick of her hand, were sailing through the air towards the hundred metre rope.

The arena held its breath.

They watched, tense, as Nazt reached the rope first, the rotation barely hitting the rope on the side. A few hairs of the rope were cut, but it held strong and Nazt flew past. Tension grew. Matum was rushing up close behind, silently following the path Nazt had opened for her. However, when Matum reached the rope, the rotation was at its fullest, perfectly perpendicular to the rope.

It cut through cleanly.

The gate rattled down, slamming onto the blood red sand as the crowd roared in approval. The trial was however not finished. Rezef watched the lion coil its muscles, angered by this prey escaping its claws, and jump. His stomach barely grazed the top of the metal gate and the desert beast landed into the centre of the arena with the grace of a cat. Silently, Rezef watched the beast prowl towards her, its jaws already parted and ready to crunch her head between the powerful canines. The putrid odour of rotting death exhaled from its mouth, and Rezef felt the lion come towards her, nearing. She waited, held until the last possible moment when the lion was only a heartbeat away from her, silently appraising this prey which refused to quiver before it. His smell was putrid, his fur still matted with the blood of his victims. The black eyes bore deep into hers, defying her to defy him. Rezef's widened in madness. Her hands snapped out to the side, each grabbing Nazt or Matum on their return swing and, using the given momentum, plunged them both deep on either side of the lion's neck. Nazt pierced the trachea, as Matum severed the carotid. Blood spurted, bathing her in the crimson, warm liquid.

The arena offered her a standing ovation, as the great cadaver of the still warm beast slowly sunk down to the ground.


	13. Dragon Dynamics

The Dragon Dynamics was held the very afternoon, under the hard sun of Harad. It was the hottest hour of the sun when ten dragons lined up for the race. The Dynamics were one of the most loved competitions in Harad, where dragons and their riders raced one another in the hot, slumbering planes of the desert. Many riders died during the race, from either a lack of water or by falling off their dragons –be it from other riders cutting off their saddles during the race or due to a particularly vicious turn to avoid rocks.

The race was split into two main parts, one of endurance, speed and will and one of precision, osmosis between the rider and the beast and of aim. The first part was a race, a merciless flight under a cloudless sky, zooming above expanses of burning sand and seeking the shifting shadows of dunes. Many dragons were not made to whistand the shifting air currents of the desert, the sun beating down onto their scaly hides. Fifty kilometres, a hundred made by the there and back again. And when, when you could see the arena –your dragon panting and half dead under you, there stayed the hardest part.

The aiming contest.

As dragons reached the arena, each dragon had to ready its fire and, flying at high speed between the different poles that had been installed into the arena, shoot at five targets arranged at the opposite end of the stadium.

The taking of aim wasn't easy, but it was made much harder by people shouting and screaming within the stands, their enthusiastic cheers upsetting the dragon's fine hearings and the fires lit at the bottom of the arena blocking their noses. The dragon race was a beautiful final, the ultimate task in which to compete.

And five Viking dragons were lined up to the starting line. Five Viking dragons, unfit and untrained for the harsh weather of Harad. Five Viking dragons, and six riders. Rezef felt sick in her stomach.

Rezef participated in the Dragon Dynamics, though she was not actually present. The dragon Mornûl flew for her, a strange race Hiccup and the Vikings had never heard of before. Upon examining the beast closer, from the top of his Gronckle as he was lined up on the starting line, Fishlegs was amazed to notice that the dragon was in fact a cross between two breeds! The might, black beast had the small, triangular head of a Nightfury, with the second ridge on the back to help it negotiate hard turns, but it lacked the retractable fangs which had given Toothless his name. Fishlegs wasn't, however, sure as to the second breed of the animal, though he suspected some form of typically Haradrim animal for he had seen many, many beasts he had never even dreamt before since he had arrived to Rezef's homeland.

Mornûl was a Morgûl. The name of the breed, was chosen by Rezef –who had discovered the breed during her training as an Assassin, an homage to its Bûrztarbaam father and Maunûl mother. Maunûls, which translates as Soldier's Pain in Common, are the Assassin's breed. They are stout and sturdy, able to fly through the deadly temperatures of the desert. Maunûls could aim their fire from a hundred metres and hit a coin tossed into the air. They were the ultimate breed of hunters, but they had one major weakness; Maunûls were wide breeds, which flew slower than most other dragons. Their fire didn't rise to great temperatures, though Assassins barely cared for that –they were hot enough to burn a man severely.

Morgûl was the offspring of chance. It had withheld the speed and agility of Nightfuries and had obtained the endurance and aim of Maunûls.

Why not cross breed them, then?

Well, a problem had soon arisen. Morgûls were incredibly aggressive. Having both the speed and the aim, Morgûls found themselves quite high in the food chain and had to compete with much stronger, bigger dragons, thus resulting in them developing an incredibly aggressive and temperamental character. Many riders had been killed in the process of training some of them, and even when the beasts were trained and domesticated, the dragons were either unfertile or refused to mate with one another, instead fighting to death. Sometimes a Morgûl would agree to mate with another dragon, but it was rarely one without a mate already and never one of the Morgûl's specie. Therefore, the number of Morgûls in Harad remained low.

In fact, Mornûl was the last one. There had been one other Morgûl in the camp, many years ago, but it had been caught within the crossfire of an attack and was killed. Many people however did not consider Mornûl a true dragon, because the Morgûl had bonded with Rezef.

Because you see, Rezef _was_ Mornûl.

* * *

Each Assassin, as he or she was becoming a fully fledged member of the Guild, was bonded to an animal. It was one of the customs of the Assassins that one's apprenticeship was not fulfilled until another species had considered you worthy of becoming one of their own –because during the bonding of an Assassin, one gained the ability to become said animal. This rarely happened, and some people had become Assassins without having been bonded with, but they were always limited into their abilities and very rarely managed to reach the higher spheres of power. Every single hero of legend had been bonded to one species or another. The Centaur high in the sky was the best example of a man being bonded to a Sand Stallion.

The most common bonds were, as already said, between desert foxes and humans. Sometimes, it happened that an Assassin was bonded to a normally unfriendly animal, such as the case of Bagashara, who had been bonded to a Sand Viper. It was even more rare for an Assassin to be bonded to a bird, out of all the 'rarities', being bonded to a Western Vulture was the most common. However, in history, never before had an Assassin been bonded to a dragon, and even less a Half-Breed.

When the word had gotten out, that Rezef had been bonded to a Half-Breed dragon, people had made snide comments and nasty remarks about her lineage, her herself being an "Aath", a Half-Breed. However, when people learnt of the nature of said Half-Breed, namely that it was a Morgûl –the last remaining Morgûl now, people had shut up and let her be. Rezef carried the power to scare now, even more so than before when her shadow no longer was the one of a frail little girl. Rezef was an Assassin, the left hand woman of the Leader of the Guild.

She was Mornûl, the Black Pain.

Hiccup was therefore rather surprised to see a rider-less dragon line up beside him at the beginning of the race, its stature so much like Toothless the boy had to look twice to convince himself he was on the right dragon. The lithe black beast beside him did not appear tense, unlike the other dragons at the starting race, and even seemed to raise an eyebrow at him due to his constant and less than impressive staring. He turned away from the intense red eyes blushing, before scolding himself –it was only a dragon!

But when the man blew the readying whistle, the demeanour of his neighbour changed. From entirely relaxed, Hiccup watched the dragon become so tense he could see the muscles rolling under its skin, the sleek movements of scales in the sunlight reflecting off the rays. There seemed to be a thin layer of water covering the animal, a small shine to his scale which he at first attributed to sweat before realising it was, in fact, a way to reflect off most of the sun's heat. The animal seemed to have rolled in the dirt, for he could see the white chalk on its scales. Was it a way to deflect more sun? Or did it enable the scales to be more slippery, as to avoid injury? Hiccup wasn't sure, but he would have a look into it when he was back on Berk.

Readying his prosthetic leg, he bent down onto Toothless and, ready, awaited the sharp blow of the whistle.

Mornûl was off into the sky as soon as the shrill sound echoed through the arena. She had her great, big flat wings opened above her head at the readying whistle and was awaiting the sharp ring to push off the earth. Her wings raised a great momentum of wind, which knocked back down some of the concurrent who were trying to get a quick head start as well –most of them Vikings. Other Haradrim riders had seen her perform the same trick last year, and most of them were now weary of the small hurricanes her wings could unleash. As soon as the gale she had projected died down, they shot off into the air, leaving the slightly disorientated Viking fleet behind them. Mornûl was however already out of sight.

Beside the rider-less dragon, Mornûl could see a blue Hornfik and the black Bûrztarbaam –Toothless. Mornûl doubted Toothless had recognised her, though she would not be surprised if the Bûrztarbaam could smell she felt oddly familiar. The Hornfik and the Bûrztarbaam were quite some distance behind her, and Mornûl could read within their flight pattern that they were relying on her to lead them to the half way check point –something she did not intend to do.

Rezef veered to the right, diving into a small shadowed ridge. The two dragon riders steered their friends to follow her, thinking she was taking a slightly less dangerous path even if it meant she wouldn't be flying in a straight line anymore. However, when they dove into the crack –barely ten seconds after she had flown in, she was nowhere in sight. Both riders shared a slightly worried look, before pushing their beasts slightly faster to catch up with the dragon which had inevitably sped up.

As soon as they were out of sight, Mornûl crept out of the crack she had hidden in and, flying out from where they had come in, she turned left to carry on flying in a straight line to the half way mark.

* * *

From somewhere on the horizon behind her, Mornûl heard a loud bang, followed by a column of purple smoke rising into the air. An emergency call. Either one of the dragons or its rider had collapsed, or someone was giving up. Mornûl flew faster.

She needed to get to the Half-way mark before all the others and with a nice little advance in order to be able to slow down on the return leg and reach the stadium at a nice, slow pace and adequate angle.

She was, as per usual, the first dragon to reach the Half-way mark. She could see on the board in front of her, where each of her opponent were on the map of the desert, and was annoyed to see Toothless and the blue Hornfik barely fifteen minutes away. Their path was shown onto the screen, having followed the ridge for ten good minutes until it reached a one kilometre straight line, where they had realised that Mornûl had been leading them into the completely wrong direction and turned around. They had increased their flight speed, halving their travel time but Mornûl genuinely doubted the Hornfik would be able to travel the return leg at such speed. Maybe the Bûrztarbaam, had it been Haradrim trained, but she genuinely doubted.

Mornûl didn't slow down to greet the men below, she simply knocked over the panel indicating she had come and made a sharp, 360° turn to fly back the distance she had come. She beat her wings harder, gaining altitude and planning up a hot hair current. She then folded her wings against herself, angling her body for the next hot air current she could sense and felt the wind rush past her, before carrying her up gently again when she opened her wings. She would do this twice more, gain altitude as she did so before she would start making some proper progress, higher up where the air was cooler.

She needed to put as much space as she could between the two dragons and herself before she needed to slow down and start losing altitude again.

The arena was in view when Mornûl sense the presence of another dragon nearby.

There was a two headed dragon flying behind her, gaining on her. Mornûl recalled the dragon had flown into the sand and been disqualified about half an hour ago, its two heads having tangled one another. Mornûl tensed, feeling something was off when the two headed dragon –what kind of dragon had two heads?, rose above her, clearly not aiming for the arena nearing them quickly, and spit out a gas. Mornûl's eyes widened when she noticed the nature of said gas, quickly speeding up and pitching down to fly out of it. She managed to escaped the cloud before the Haradrim flyers got the dragon to ignite it, and Mornûl felt the fire slip past her, grazing her tail.

It put her in a bad mood.

The black dragon gained altitude again, knowing the two headed animal only had one shot, and rolled onto her back. She opened her wings against the wind, halting herself brutally and watched as the dragon slightly behind her was unable to halt in time and, carried by its momentum, flew above her. The Morgûl extended its leg and, still losing speed quickly, mauled the unprotected under belly of the dragon. Dark red blood spilt onto her skin, as she finally flew out of the dragon's shadow and watched it, wailing and crying in pain, as the beast flew out of the sky. She righted herself, just in time to spot a second dragon about to fly up to collide with herself. Mornûl put a burst of power into her flap, sending herself gaining speed and altitude again. The dragon followed her up, and she did a complete roll about herself, the sharp talons at the end of her wings severing the straps holding the rider to the mount. The dragon dove down to catch its friend, leaving Mornûl with a problem.

She was flying too high and too quickly to be able to enter the arena at a safe angle and speed.

The sound of Toothless' wings under her stopped her musing –Mornûl was here to win. She once more folded her wings against herself and dove down from the skies, bulleting towards the tiny opening marking the entrance of the arena, Toothless right behind her.

The arena burst into applause as the black Morgûl flew in with the speed of a torpedo, immediately swerving to the right to avoid the pole positioned right in front of the entrance. She dodged another one, angling her body onto the side so she could fit into a tight opening and aimed as the first target came into view.

Her throat seemed to spasm as a black, cold fire bubbled into her Gaash Gland and spurted out of her mouth. A small, round ball of black flames sailed through the air, hitting the target at the same time as the Bûrztarbaam's blue one behind her. The dragon narrowed its eyes, putting even more speeding into her wings and firing the second, third and fourth target in a quick succession, even before the Bûrtarbaam had recovered from its first ball. Mornûl looked onto the wall of obstacle hiding the fifth target, knowing that once she was trough the tight square of light they cut out she would have to turn around and fire onto the target at the opposing end of the arena. She gained speed.

The first year she had done this event, Mornûl had lost a few precious seconds looking around for the target once she had reached the other side. She had almost flown into the wall as well, having barely five metres of space to turn around and fire.

They were not expected to brake in order to halt. The wall was there to halt them.

No. Mornûl was not slightly worried for Toothless and his rider behind her. She was not.

As he hit the third target, she reached the optimum speed and, folding her wings as tightly against herself as possible, Mornûl flew right into the centre of the square opening. She felt the tips of her wings brush the edge of several poles, but she got through to the other end and as soon as she was out of the dense forest of metal, she rolled, using her momentum. Upside down, her eyes narrowed onto the target a hundred metres away. Mornûl readied her fire.

Brutally opening her wings, the dragon used the movement given to her by the sudden jolt forward to propel her fire ball.

The fifth target erupted into flames.

The amphitheatre burst into applauses, cries of elation and shouts of approval rising through the stadium as Mornûl won the Dragon Dynamics event and broke the Ultimate Warrior's record of five wins in a row with her sixth victory. Rezef had just embedded into stone her status as a legend.

But at what price.

Toothless burst through the tight opening, repeating Mornûl's actions as he had seen her do. His eyes opened slightly in disbelief, as he noticed the burning target –so small and so far away, before firing a ball of his own. It hit the edge, the black and blue fire mixing. Applauses rose again, this time at the stranger who had performed a great deed –a deed worthy of a Dragon Rider, or an Assassin.

However, Toothless hadn't foreseen the lack of space.

The night fury slammed into the Morgûl, both reptiles hitting the side of the amphitheatre. With too little space to extend their wings in order to break their fall, Toothless felt the other dragon wrap her wings around him and his rider, talons digging harsh into their skin and drawing blood. He felt the dragon tense against them, as if he was ready to use them as a jumping board to gain height and break his fall a little. Pushing Toothless and his rider to their death, plummeting faster.

It did not happen so.

Mornûl hit the floor first, her back kissing the sand of the arena and burying herself deep within it. Her wings, wrapped around the other dragon, uncurled under the violence of the shock, both of those she had been protecting rolling out of her embrace and onto the burning sand. Mornûl breathed in and out slightly, her wheezes loud inside the silence of the arena. Her eyes had closed in the fall, and she crunched them hard against the pain. She breathed in and out again, before she let her body return back to the one of a human.

White, hot soaring pain shot through Rezef's back as she felt her bones and skin melt into the ones of a human. Now more than ever, she was hit by how frail a human body was. Rezef breathed in and out again, before rolling onto her stomach. She tensed her muscles, willing them to move –despite the pain, despite the anger, despite the silence of the arena. She willed herself up.

She got up. First on her hands and knees, and then pushing off her hands and sitting back on her heels. A single man stood and began to clap slowly and deliberately. A woman on the other side of the amphitheatre imitated him, and soon the entire stadium, Viking and Haradrim alike, men and women, Assassin and Holy warrior, slave and freemen, they all stood up; proud of their winner, proud of their legend, but most of all –proud of the woman she was.

Because Haradrims knew. It takes a lot to become an Assassin. It takes even more to win the Warrior Tournament six times in a row. It takes far much more to survive in the Wild. But it takes the most to put your life on the line to save the one of a boy you love.

* * *

She was the Golnaukhûn, the steel heart. But for it to be of steel, it had to be there in the first place.


	14. Empty Words to an Empty Heart

His wife's actions during the race had echoed in Hiccup's brain, her voice on their wedding day running through his head –again and again, like a bad mantra.

" _I swear to never harm you, be it by poison, words or acts and to rather create for you a home where poisons have antidotes, words are as honey and acts are ones of love."_

She had promised, and held her promised.

But what about him?

Had he loved her as he promised he would? Had he done all that he could to make her happy, as was his duty and responsibility? He should have been the one protecting her, not the other way around. He should have been the one feeling the pain, not Rezef. Not Rezef, not when the girl had accepted Astrid and allowed him to live the love of his life with her. Not when she had understood his heart, accepted him fully and gone as far to please him, as far to keep him happy, as to accept seeing him with another woman. As to close her eyes when she walked into THEIR room, THEIR shared bed, to see a blonde head resting there. She had accepted his love –but what had he given her in return?

Sometimes, he wondered. Wondered why she was doing all this. Was it just her duty? Was it just what she had been told to do, and she did it –like a machine? But she never really promised to save his life. She didn't have to take the fall for him. Was she redeeming herself? From what? The Haradrims loved her, though she did instil fear in their hearts. So why?

Astrid had suggested why. Because she was in love with him. Because she was so far in love, so far willing to see him happy, that she didn't care if she got hurt in the process. Because she loved him.

He couldn't believe it. Why would this beautiful, deadly Haradrim Assassin, this woman who could do anything and everything she wanted, why would she love him? Him, who had lost a leg? Him, who knocked things over every day, who tripped down stairs and bumped into stuff on a regular basis?

But she always caught him before he could fall too far down the stairs, always fixed the stuff he knocked over and always moved the things he bumped into. She always… she was always there. Always.

And Hiccup knew she could cook. He had seen her make breakfast for herself, when the night had been too short for him and Astrid and the blonde Viking wasn't dressed by the time his wife was ready to go.

His _wife_.

It had felt weird to call her that, at first. Foreign. As if the only one he could call that was Astrid, and Rezef would never truly be his wife. But now… now…

"_you are thinking about her again, aren't you?"

Now he had a smile on his face when he said she was his wife. She was. She was his.

"_I was wondering why… why she took the fall."

Astrid's blue eyes bore into his for a little while, reading the deep emerald orbs.

"_you are starting to realise that maybe I was right, eh? Are you going to leave me?"

He laughed, but even to his ears it sounded fake.

"_no. I don't plan to. I love you. I am just… I don't know. Baffled? I feel selfish about all she has done, and all that I haven't."

Her blonde eyebrows furrowed cutely, and suddenly all thoughts of exotic black eyes and charcoal manes rolled out of his mind.

"_you were beautiful today, Astrid. I think I fell in love all over again."

She pushed him playfully away, laughing slightly. The spark was back in her blue eyes. He was still hers.

Rezef would have expected to see her husband at the reception that night. Actually, she wouldn't have thought he would not be there. It was only proper etiquette that he should attend the feast in her honour, but the seat at her right remained desperately empty as Hiccup did not deem it fit to grace her table with his presence.

Her Traumogh did not fail to notice the absence of a certain blonde haired Viking either.

* * *

The dinner passed on without any commotions, each guest drinking, eating, roaring with laughter and fighting to their hearts' contents –all of them being the signs of a quality feast. Desserts were served, and soon came the time of the 'after-party', the big, wide reception in an adjacent tent where ale flowed freely and naked dancing girls enraptured men in their charms. Flute players as well as harpists and lute-players encouraged people to dance and be merry, as the Assassins slowly sunk into the shadows to meet outside in order to share tales of past adventures and a pipe full of smoking herbs. Rezef was about to walk outside, trying to avoid the people her reputation hadn't scared, those who were wishing to congratulate her despite knowing she could snap their necks in a second, when her Traumogh motioned for her to join the Assassins outside.

Silently, the woman walked over to where they were all sitting and listened as a man told the tale of a party of five Assassins who had gone into the Wild.

"_suddenly, we hear a roar from the right. A shadow flittered above us, and we barely had the time to register what had just jumped out of the jungle to attack us that BOOM!" the children jumped. "The Golnaukhûn had unsheathed her famous blades and was cutting the jungle cat into hundreds of tiny pieces!"

Rezef smiled fondly from where she was sat, before she corrected the man she had once worked with.

"_precisely sixty six pieces, Verafiil. Not quite a hundred though, I am afraid."

The child she was sitting next to opened his eyes wide, when he realised the Assassin beside him was THE Winner of the Tournament.

"_Rezef! You came!"

"_Traumogh caught me as I was leaving."

"_can you tell us a story?" asked a little girl from the right, cutting through adult nonsense. Rezef's eyes turned to her, the little girl flinching under the soulless black orbs.

"_Mor', sit down…" murmured a boy next to the girl. "don't anger her." The little girl was obeying her friend, when Rezef's cold voice shone through the now deadly campfire.

"_there is a land, far, far away, where people are very different from here."

Elder Assassins turned their heads sharply towards Rezef, who had never spoken out at a campfire before, as her Traumogh smiled slightly to himself. Magic lingered everywhere, even where people thought it lost.

"_in this land live people, who have learnt to manipulate the flows of nature around and within them, allowing those selected few who could understand the way the earth worked to create techniques based onto those flows of energy."

"_like healers?" asked a little boy, before slamming his hands over his mouth when he noticed he had spoken over her. She simply smiled.

"_yes and no. Some people did use their knowledge to help others, by specialising into medicine and using their own energy to save lives, like our healers do. But most of them, on the other hand, used their knowledge to make war. They created techniques which could kill people, based around fire, earth, water, wind and lightning. Each person had a natural affinity with one of each, their affinity often decided by which village they came from. For example, if they came from the Village Hidden in the Mist, then they would be very good water users. Do you understand?"

Everybody nodded yes, and Rezef smiled before carrying on.

"_each village fought against one another –"

"_why?"

"_why what?" Rezef asked, looking at the same boy.

"_why did they fight? Why did they make war?"

"_because it is easier to make war than to make peace, young one. Much easier."

She let her words sink into their brains, aware that she had their rapt attention now and carried on.

"_but some people got tired of making war, and wanted to make peace again." she ignored the smug look on the little boy's face, and carried on. "This group fought for a 'new dawn', as they called it. It was composed of only nine people"

"_nine? How are they going to make peace with nine people?"

"_they were nine of the best ninja the world had ever seen." Her answer had been a bit clipped, as Rezef began to feel a little annoyance at the kids. She breathed in and out, carrying on with her story.

"_those nine people each came from a village, which they had defected from –"

"_defect-what?" asked a smaller girl.

"_defected. It means that they left the village without asking if it was okay and were therefore considered as traitors." Answered an older Assassin for her.

"_why did they do that?"

"_they were some of the best; the villages wouldn't have let them go."

The kids nodded slowly, trying to assimilate all those concepts as Rezef carried on.

"_now, before I carry on, you must know that in those times, there were demons around. There were nine main demons, one which had one tail, another with two, another with three and thus until you reached nine tails. If all the demons were reunited, then they all turned into a master demon, which had ten tails. Now, the leader of this group wanted to find all the demons, in order to create the ten tails. He believed he would be able to master it and that he would then use the body of the ten tails to cast a spell which would trap the whole world under a comatose sleep, in which everyone would be happy."

Kids began to 'oh' from around her, seeing the happy ending for everyone happening.

"_however, not everybody wanted him to do it. In fact, many people preferred to remain unhappy and awake rather than happy but asleep."

She was about to leave it at that, giving the children something to think over, when somebody stopped her. It was an adult, which surprised the girl.

"_what happened to the group of nine?"

She paused, trying to find a way to put it nicely.

"_they died." She finally replied. "They were killed, fighting for what they believed in. The leader didn't reunite all the beasts, and they died trying to create a perfect world. One died fighting for his pride, another for all that was human in him. One died for his loyalties, and another for his ideals. One died a servant a peace, and another far beyond his time. All died, but for all –death was a deliverance."

The silence stretched, not awkward but reflective. One of the smaller children yawned, and an Assassin got up.

"_I think it is about time you children went to sleep, neh?"

They grumbled slightly, but did leave to curl up in the still warm sand, below their tent. A woman accompanied them, promising a bed time story if they were good. Rezef watched them leave, before she turned to her Teacher standing behind her.

"_the Guild has changed a lot in the past months. I rarely recall people telling me to go to bed, or even reading me bedtime stories."

"_people are trying to find happiness, Rezef. No one can forever be alone."

She didn't reply, silently watching the woman act the story out for the children.

"_your story was nice."

She laughed sarcastically, turning her face to her teacher.

"_it didn't do the legend justice, and wasn't by any mean fit of one of your tales."

"_but you said it. You sat with the children and picked the tale and gave it a deeper meaning, didn't you? You made something out of it, for them. Your tale will stay with them forever, whereas mine might simply roll over their consciousness as water over rocks."

"_I remember all your tales."

He looked at her more closely, before smiling.

"_you should come back more often, Rezef. I am sure the children would love to hear about the Vikings, and some of their tales."

"_you need to ask my husband then, he seems like the one to know them all."

He sent her a long, sideway look.

"_what you did in the arena…"

"_was foolish. I shouldn't have put my life in danger for him." she stood up, brushing the sands off her clothes. His voice rung sharply behind her as she began to fade in the shadows.

"_what you did was what any loving wife would do, Rezef."

She allowed them to roll through the silent night, leaving the words of her teacher behind.

Empty words to an empty heart.


	15. Hope

**Hello again,**

 **Thanks to the two reviewers (it made me happy to see that you appreciated this story enough to share your thoughts with me). Guest, do not worry. We are of the same view on this matter and I hope the last four chapters will have satiated you -maybe you'll even find them satisfactory! :)**

 **Thanks again for reading and reviewing,**

 **Hellsig**

* * *

Rezef and the Vikings left as the dawn was breaking, on the following day. Her Traumhog was the only still awake, the only one to see the dark silhouette of the Mornûl disappear into the horizon.

He knew he would not see her back.

He knew she would never truly be back whether or not she returned to these lands, not when her heart lied with a man who had broken it and she refused to pick up the shards he had littered on the ground. She would never be back –because Gothi and he knew it. She had stopped being just a Haradrim Assassin a long time ago.

She had wrecked her being, had shattered her soul so that he could walk on satin. She had broken her hopes, crushed her beliefs so that his eyes could forever shine; but what did he give her in return? A furtive caress as he caught a glimpse of what could have been? A tender word he never said but thought? The widening of onyx eyes when they fathomed what could have been?

Or did he give her the clenching of her heart, the breaking of her soul and the crushing of her everything? Did he rip her away from who she could have been to turn her into what she never wanted to be? Did he perfect his creation; carry her to her apogee only to watch her burn? Where was the love?

Where was the pain?

The pain was when Mornûl landed in Berk to see the jar containing her golden war paint had shattered on the ground of their bedroom. The pain was when Morgûl landed in Berk to see the unmade bed in their room and the knowledge she hadn't been the one to sleep in it.

The pain was when she realised she wasn't his wife. She would never be.

Because Rezef Aath Mornûl Morgûl was an Assassin, a Haradrim woman of the darkness, Death made man. She was the shadow, and Jashin knew the shadow was sterile.

Because Rezef Aath Mornûl Morgûl would never, ever bear him and heir. Because Rezef Aath Mornûl Morgûl couldn't give him a child.

War had stolen her womb.

In the darkest hours of the night, Rezef had imagined a child. When her duty as an Assassin lay far, far away from her mind and she could vanish in the shadows of death, Rezef had dreamt of a small hand in hers and a quiet giggle at being caught after lights out. She had dreamt of gentle black hair falling in soft waves around a slightly tanned skin and piercing emerald eyes staring at her from behind long, thick eyelashes. She had dreamt of a child, a perfect mix of her and him. She had dreamt of a future with giggles and brightly painted houses, of a future with an angel to light the way. Of someone to protect with all her being, because she was part of her.

All she would have would be the reflections of Nazt and Matum.

* * *

But when he opened the door to their house that night, motioning Rezef in and telling her to take a seat around the dinner table because it had just finished cooking, she felt her heart soar at the knowledge he had only laid the table for them. When he smiled his lopsided smile because she wouldn't sit on a chair, but rather perched herself on the counter, he simply turned his chair around and faced her for the meal. When he took place beside her to dry the dishes as she washed them, rather than sitting in front of the fireplace with his blonde Viking, she closed her eyes and savoured the heat radiating from him.

It wouldn't last long.

"_where is she?"

Her voice had been so casually neutral and blank he wouldn't have guessed she was talking about Astrid had she not motioned to the couch, the couch Rezef never sat on and only ever Astrid and him really used.

"_she went back home. Her mother needed her for tonight."

"_will she be here for breakfast?"

So casual, so innocent but the hurt behind her words wrecked his soul. How could he not have seen, how could he not have realised.

"_no. Nor tomorrow. They are setting up for the four year anniversary of the end of the war between dragon and Vikings. Astrid and our friends have played a key part in it, so they will be very busy for the next three days or so."

"_and you?"

A singing accent, with words flowing through her mouth and gently melodies.

"_they don't want me anywhere near the preparation. I am too clumsy."

"_no you are not."

He looked up, surprised. She was staring at the water in the bucket, the suds and the sponge moving methodically over the cutlery. Her eyebrows were furrowed.

"_you dance when you walk and when you move it is with the purpose of someone with a reason. You don't stumble even though you look like it. Someone clumsy falls. Someone who trips and twirls and bumps dances."

She rinsed the plate she was doing, shaking it a little before handing it over to him. He didn't take it, and Rezef looked up from her suds to see why. He was staring at her, eyes wide and slightly startled. She motioned to the plate, shaking it slightly. Hiccup forced himself out of his reverie and took it with the drying cloth, moping off the water.

"_you think… you think I dance?"

"_of course. Any fool can see that."

Such assurance, such clipped tones hiding in what she answered. She knew it, it was a fact. Hiccup smiled to himself.

Sometimes he wondered what great deed he had done to be able to call a woman like her his wife.

* * *

"_do you want to go for a ride?"

Eyebrows shot up as Rezef hid a smirk behind her book, charcoal eyes looking at her husband with mirth.

"_you mean, do I want to fly?"

He blushed as he realised how easily misunderstood he could have been, shaking his head up and down as she marked her page and closed her book.

"_of course."

Hiccup smile, rushing up the stairs to grab his flight gear and putting on his jacket. He grabbed his helmet and goggles, running back down and tripping over the last three stairs. Rezef's hand righted him up as he smiled sheepishly.

"_Toothless has been aching for a flight recently."

Rezef smiled, waving to the small clever dragon.

"_he gets lonely when you aren't there." So do I.

"_I am always there."

But never alone.

Rezef shrugged, as the dragon began thumping his tail in appraisement and rolling on the grass. She laughed a little, watching Hiccup saddle Toothless and slip his helmet on. He slapped his goggles into place, clicking his metal leg onto Toothless' stirrup and extended a hand to her. Rezef smiled slightly smugly.

She didn't need any help to soar through the nights.

Hiccup watched, mesmerised, as her skin seemed to melt. It shifted on her frame, stretching and distorting as the figure of the woman beside him slowly morphed to one of a dragon.

Mornûl. Her Assassin counterpart.

The dragon's obsidian eyes watched him for a second, silently defying his judgement before it sprung up into the air, forcing Toothless to crouch low on the ground at the strength of the wind her wings rose. He remembered it. The blast, strong as a hailstorm and unforgiving which had pinned them to the earth in the first seconds of the Dragon Dynamics.

Mornûl was already high up in the skies.

Toothless whined a little, bringing his rider back to the present, dragging him up into the ether. The black half-breed rolled upside down, watching her play mate catch up to her. She flicked her tail, righting herself up and beat her wings again, unleashing small tempests with every thrust. Toothless took this as a challenge, rushing after her. Ensued a game of catch with the black Tarbaam, twirling through clouds and flirting with the skies.

The onyx-eyed dragon remained out of reach.

She never strayed far. Not when Toothless was rushing up behind her, jumping out of a cloud like a rocket only to see the black dragon veer to the right by flicking her tail and avoid the rider and its mount by a breath. In fact, sometimes, she was close enough he could see the scales on her body, the endless rippling of muscles under her skin and the way the night glistened off it. He stretched his hand as they flew side by side, his fingers hovering above the scales. A flicker of black notified him the dragon had felt his warmth, and he suddenly felt the sting of a thousand hatreds in the deep onyx eyes.

It was a dragon here with him. Not a woman. The childish feelings of love the Assassin bore for him were not present in the beast beside him, not when the anger and pain was still so rough.

He withdrew his hand, and the onyx eyes looked back ahead.

How much of the woman remained in the beast?

The great beast folded its mighty wings against its sides, angling its head directly towards the earth. Toothless' tongue lolled out of his mouth, eyes eager to follow his friend. Both black shapes plummeted to the ground.

The wind was whistling in her ears, hissing at her brain and shutting out any thought Mornûl could have had in that instant. The pain, the anger and the love all disappeared as the dragon allowed the air to rush past, stealing all her worries away from her body.

It felt wonderful. Wonderful to fly in the darkness, to plummet to the earth and knew it would only be a split second which would save her life.

The ground was nearing them a neck breaking speed, the clouds already so far up in the skies. Mornûl felt the lime eyes of Toothless flicker to her, looking for some sort of reassurance as to the manoeuvre.

The ground was so close.

At the last possible moment, Toothless pulled up.

Mornûl didn't.

The black half breed collided with the surface of the earth, a mat sound echoing through the clearing they had landed in. A cloud of earth and smoke rose, stones raining onto the battered grass as Toothless escaped the wave of shock and turned around, eyes wide in fright.

Where was the black dragon?

"_it appears Haradrims land in more violent ways than Vikings…"

The voice had echoed from inside the seism, silent with calm and calm with assurance.

How could she be alive?

The Haradrim was standing inside the crater, the earth and dust settling around her. Her feet rested inside the great imprints of a dragon's foot –where Mornûl had crashed.

"_Rezef!"

Hiccup jumped off his dragon, Toothless nudging him forward. He stumbled up to her, leaning on the side of the gaping hole and watching her exit it.

"_Rezef! Are you hurt?"

The Haradrim laughed slightly, dusting her shoulder off.

"_of course not."

There was assurance in her words. A silent imposing truth which prevented Hiccup from asking more questions. His eyes bore deep into hers, silently watching the onyx eyes the beast had had.

There was no hatred in those human orbs. Only mirth and acceptance. A shadow of pain.

They widened when his mouth collided with hers. Arms wrapped around her lithe frame, pulling her into the bony chest of her husband. It was warm, sudden and unexpected. She tensed at the feel of his skin on hers, at the sudden grip on the base of her neck.

Best place to kill a human.

Her Assassin heart slowed down, as his lips began to move against hers. How many times had she killed like that? How many men had she kissed then killed in a heartbeat? His hand left her nape, slithering down her body and tracing her spinal cord as they tangled at the bottom of her back.

Her own lips replied to his silent caresses, her tongue slipping into his mouth and touching his own with a quiet bravado. He chuckled into the back of his throat, the vibrations penetrating her body and warming her stomach.

She felt in love.

"_I was scared, Rezef." His forehead leaned against hers, emerald closed with the gently memory of a sweet kiss. It was the first he had meant to give her. The first time their lips had met without the duty to meet. She felt warm. Too warm.

So was I. I was scarred and scared, lonely and alone.

Rezef pulled out of his embrace, head snapping around as she unsheathed Nazt.

"_something is here."

Her voice was so anxious. He had never heard those tones to it, never dream he would one day see her face twist in what looked like weary fear. Toothless jumped around a little, an owl hooting through the night. Rezef tensed, quietly waiting.

No one came, and Hiccup watched her without comprehension. He had heard no one, had felt no one. And no one was here, because no one had come out.

The forest seemed to close in on them, silently looming above their heads as hundreds of eyes appeared in the shadows. The air stilled, weighing down on them and suddenly, Hiccup wondered when the night had gotten so cold and where his breath had gone. The darkness surrounded them.

"_those who ventured too far into the forests of the North never came back." Said the Haradrim, blade held high.

"_Rezef…" a moment of incredulity as the darkness receded and something sprung to his mind. "are you scared of the forest?"

Her back tensed and she spun around incredibly slowly.

"_no."

She looked like a feral pray, a beast cornered and ready to lash out. Hiccup's eyes widened, and a small smile appeared onto his face as she twirled around and tensed again when the cracking of a branch was heard.

"_where is Toothless?"

The black dragon had disappeared. It was Hiccup's turn now to begin worrying, as he called for his mate.

"_come on bud! Come out! Toothless…" steps to their right made them both turn, facing the darkness. "Toothless…" insecurity had crept in his voice, his unseeing eyes flashing left and right as he felt the panic near him. "Toothless!" Hiccup felt a breath on his back.

The weight of Toothless pinned him to the ground, as a raspy tongue began to lick his face and a bell-like laughter rung through the clearing.

"_you knew!" accused Hiccup, sending a playful glare to his wife.

"_I saw Toothless." She confirmed with a slightly smug smile.

"_but… the cracking of the branch?"

Her face lost all mirth.

"_that wasn't Toothless, Hiccup." There it was again. The tone, the undulation in her voice like a tremor of respect. The quiet fear that took her body. She was a child of the golden sands. 'The forest is only safe by day because the spirits grant us passage. At night, men are no longer welcome in the realm of spirits."

His dragon moved from his back, as he grabbed the extended hand of the woman.

"_come. Let us leave. The forest has eyes, and those are starting to no longer be friendly."

Hiccup allowed his hand to linger into hers, eyes meeting and a small smile exchanged as she nodded and transformed again. Without a glance back, the black half-breed left the ground.

* * *

Dragons were strange. Almost as strange as women.


	16. Love

"_Rez?"

The Haradrim twirled her blade around her hand, sheathing it in the same movement as she looked over her shoulder to her husband.

"_yes?"

"_you haven't left for the Academy?"

She spun on her heels, checking her swords were still easy to get out of their sheaths.

"_I wasn't aware I was needed. I am meeting Gothi at eleven."

"_Stormfly bruised her wing."

The Haradrim nodded, grabbing the kit which were lain on a table at the back of the room.

"_you are aware this was meant to be a sewing room right? Not a training area."

An eyebrow elegantly rose.

"_I would have never guessed." Her words were dripping with sarcasm. Hiccup rolled his forest green eyes, stretching his hand out.

"_come on. We'll be late."

Her hand joined his, as he dragged her out of their home.

Rezef didn't like holding hands. In fact, she didn't like many things. She didn't like that her hand was useless to her when she let Hiccup hold it, meaning she would lose a few seconds in unsheathing her weapons. She didn't like that her heart beat too fast when he was near, meaning she wouldn't be able to run as fast if she needed to fight. She didn't like that she felt like she did around him. She felt weak and strong. Like her usual strength had been replaced with something else, something with which she could move mountains.

She didn't like this. Not at all.

But then, when Hiccup smiled at her and placed a tiny kiss at the corner of her mouth, Rezef felt all those inhibitions fade away.

He was happy. That was what mattered.

* * *

Stormfly was a sapphire blue Deadly Nagger, slightly vain and a little self centred –as most Deadly Naggers. She had bruised her wings in a flight, trying to keep up with Toothless and taking a gale of wind head on.

Any dragon knew that gales couldn't be taken head on, so Rezef wondered what had pushed this one to do so. Competition she guessed, pride.

"_fraut…" she murmured to the dragon as she leaned over her bruised wing. "Fraut… Quill!" Rezef seized the limb, lifting it up until the dragon roared in pain. "The muscle isn't just bruised, it's torn." She told the blonde behind her. "Stormfly needs rest. Roughly three weeks of no flying, and two more after that of no rider on flights."

"_you mean I can't take her out for more than a month!"

Rezef didn't answer the Viking, carrying her inspection.

"_the Nagger is more violent than usual…" she murmured to herself, leaning over the female. Rezef walked around the reptile, keeping an eye on her thumping tail. Once she had completed her turn, she placed her hand on the beast's nuzzle and sent a wave of energy through her.

Rezef's lips curved into a smirk.

"_make that a year, Astrid. Stormfly is gestating."

"_gesta-what?"

"_Stormfly is pregnant?" questioned Hiccup from the door to the cell, eyes wide open in surprise. "but… she is the only Deadly Nagger here!"

"_I wouldn't be surprised if the hatchling was a cross, that'd be just like my girl to find the best man around."

An aath. Just like her.

"_Deadly Naggers don't often breed with other species, they are too vain for that. I suppose she found a mate during your travels. The survival of their breed is too important to the Naggers to be picky about their males. Though they will, if they can."

Astrid looked at her dragon, gobsmacked. The cerulean eyes looked back, slightly sheepish though definitely haughty.

"_I'm going to be an aunt!"

Rezef's eyes widened in surprise. She hadn't been expecting that…

"_did you hear that Hiccup! We are going to be aunt and uncle! We only need Toothless to find himself a cute little Nightfury and we can have a whole family of baby dragons! It is going to be so cute!"

The Haradrim took a step back, her soul churning at the small storm the normally reserved blonde had unleashed. She had almost forgotten.

It was Hiccup and Astrid. Not Hiccup and Rezef.

* * *

"_Rez!"

The shout made the woman's head turn to look over her shoulder, at the boy running towards her. What did he want? She was going to be late for meeting up with Gothi if he didn't hurry his ass with whatever he wanted.

"_Rezef!" he caught up to her, leaning onto his knees and panting.

"_yes, Hiccup?"

"_Astrid… Back there…"

She smiled, bitter and biting.

"_don't worry. I forgot."

His brow creased, as she turned around and began to walk.

"_no, Rezef!" his hand secured around her arm, holding her in place. "Rez… I… I don't know." He had whispered, but it hit her with the strength of a whirlwind. Her eyes widened, and she had to restrain herself from taking a step back.

"_why don't you know?"

Her voice had been so blank, so empty.

"_I don't know what I want. I have so much, and now I feel like I don't deserve you. I feel like you are… you deserve so much more but…" his head bowed. "I think I love you Rezef…"

Her eyebrow rose, and acid spilled from her lips.

"_more than Astrid?"

Emerald closed in pain, as a sardonic smile stretched her lips.

"_don't say things you don't mean, Hiccup. They hurt more than you think."

She turned and left.

Heart and soul empty.

* * *

"_I am infertile."

Gothi's head shot up, eyes wide and shocked. A shadow passed and veiled them, already clouded with the eternal night.

"_why do you tell me this?"

Rezef bit back a smile, having already heard those words.

"_why would I not? Stoic will learn at one point or another that I cannot bear the heir he requires. I would rather he learnt through you than through gossip."

Unseeing eyes widened.

"_how do you…"

"_I am no fool, Gothi. And even though you have my respect, it was clear you were tasked with reporting what I said to the chief. I am, after all, a barbarian."

Silence stretched as Rezef carried on picking the plants, setting them in the basket on the ground next to her. Gothi sat on a stump nearby, her shoulders heavy with the weight of years.

"_what are you going to do?"

Onyx looked up to the sky.

"_Hiccup doesn't know yet. I'll tell him. One day or another. But…"

Her hands faltered, and the wise woman could not help but see how far the mighty girl had fallen, how low she had been cast.

"_But whatever I do, I'll have to relinquish whichever link I have to him. He will need to take a new bride, and…"

"_he may not wish to."

The wise woman had cut through her words with fire and bluntness, hinting at something Rezef refused to believe.

"_it is his duty to. His duty, to his family and village. Berk needs an heir and the knowledge their ruling line will hold strong."

"_but Hiccup may not want to."

Rezef stopped pretending to pick up herbs, sitting down and looking straight at the blind woman. Even then, she knew Gothi was aware she was looking at her.

"_he does not love me. His dreams are ones of golden blonde and cerulean. Not of nightmare black."

"_but what are your dreams of?"

The question startled her. Rezef brushed it aside.

"_what my dreams are of is irrelevant."

Gothi felt the girl rise from the ground, grabbing the basket.

"_not so much, Rezef. Not so irrelevant as you make them to be."

* * *

"_where were you?"

There was a sense of déjà-vu.

"_I was with Gothi."

"_Gothi came back to the village three hours ago, Rezef."

"_as I was saying, Hiccup, I was with Gothi. What I did after is of little relevance."

"_it is of relevance! Especially when I learn through my father that…"

"_that what, human? That I am unfertile and broken goods? That you were married to a woman without virtue and future? That what?"

It was cold. So cold. Her voice, her soul, her heart. She was cold. A desert, rushed through by the winds. She was arid and dead, she felt arid and dead. She felt cold. Cold inside, numb. It hurt. It hurt so damn much.

"_that there can't be an us, Rezef! That WE can't be! I thought… I hoped I would see clear but –but this was not what clear I wanted to see! I didn't want to see my duty laid out before me! I wanted to make a choice! To choose the one I wanted to finish with!"

"_have you ever thought…"

It hurt. It hurt so much the acid spilling from her lips. It killed her, murdered her soul and hurt her so much. She felt like she was breaking.

"_have you ever thought that maybe one of us didn't want to spend eternity with you?"

Silence.

Silence, stretching through their house –through the village. As if everyone held their breaths and the tension had frozen them. Silence through the house, through the room as if they were two wild beasts who had torn at one another, silently waiting the other's move.

Silence.

He moved towards her. His arms stretched before him, gripping her body and pulling her to him. Rezef didn't move. She let him twist her like a puppet, allowed him to break her even more.

"_dad will pronounce the divorce tomorrow, Rezef. And you will… you will no longer be my wife."

His voice had broken on the last words, silent tears cascading down his cheeks and making her hair wet. She didn't care. Rezef held his jacket in her hands, fisted and balled them and couldn't let him go. Now that she had done what she ought to, now that she had done what she had promised to do in her marriage vows…

She felt empty.

And then his lips found hers. His lips found hers and something rekindled inside of her, a fire which she had thought had been put out. Hope roared and she felt the heat of passion light her up from the inside. His hands tangled in her hair as she slid her hands behind his neck.

Twist to the right and it is broken.

She didn't. She allowed her eyes to close and her body to melt, pressing herself against him and wrapping her legs around his waist. His hands slid to her butt, gliding over them and seizing each to keep her up as he got up the stairs. He stumbled a little, but Rezef's hand righted them and they soon made it to the bedroom without having stopped kissing, her hands already ridding him of his jacket. He placed her back down on the ground clumsily, letting her drop. His hands tangled in her hair and Rezef felt her lips curl into a desperate smile.

"_fuck me."

The plea had been a silent storm, hitting him and bringing his emotions to the surface again, stirring him inside.

"_no."

She halted, surprised.

"_I'll make love to you."

She let it all go.

The hatred, the pain, the acid in her stomach. She let it all go, allowed all to leave her soul. His hands were hovering on her skin, pushing clothing off with the frenzy of a desperate man –because that was what they were. Desperate. His fingers tangled in the leather knot of her armour, but she just shrugged it off. Her fingers fumbled with his belt, slapping it off him and hitting their skin in the process. They didn't mind. It didn't hurt as much as their souls in that instant. The heavy buckle hit the floor and Hiccup pushed her onto the bed, hovering over her. Her feet pushed his trousers off, as her hands pressed him against her.

He could feel her heart under her skin, could sense the silent humming of her life.

It was beautiful.

His fingers trailed her collarbone, his lips worshipping her neck as she bit back a raspy moan. Her breathing hitched and he imagined it was the first time someone had been this careful with her. The first and most likely the last time someone would worship her body.

His index trailed the valley of her breast, his palm resting against the planes of her stomach as he watched her shiver. She was naked under him, eyes closed in a bliss she had never felt before. Her ankles crossed over the fabric of his underwear and a small frown marred her features of an instant. She pulled it off quickly and the impact of what they were doing hit him as he felt her flip them over.

They were making love, being a husband and a wife for the first time. They were doing it, because tomorrow they wouldn't be a husband and a wife anymore.

They were doing it because in the end, they did love one another.

Just not as much as he loved Astrid.

His thoughts jumbled as she took his length in her mouth, her eyes closing and her head bobbing up and down. It was the first time anyone had done that to him, and he felt his breath hitch and his body tense. It was… good. Waves of pleasure rippled through him, crippling him of all his senses but the one of her touch. She was warm and wet, and her tongue was slightly raspy from where she licked him and it felt so good. It felt so good and right he didn't even think about stopping himself.

She tasted him, and he tasted himself when she crawled back up and kissed him. It was salty. Slightly metallic even, and had undertones of the marine wind. The one he soared through and felt exhilarated by. A groan escaped his throat, and suddenly he couldn't wait anymore. He rolled her over, pinned her to the covers underneath and kissed her hard. It was long and languorous, lingering in the bestiality of the deed as his hips rocked. She gasped and he crumbled on top of her. His teeth bit into her flesh as she contracted her muscles and he swore he could feel the pleasure radiating off them in waves. It was like a drug, ripping through his body and burning him from the inside without a second of hesitation. It felt so good, warm and moist and ready –but tighter. Tighter than the blonde and yet more relaxed. As if she knew what to do, when to do it.

She did. The thought struck and remained, and it stopped being an explosion of light. Frenzy died and the dark melancholy of pain took over. His teeth left her skin and when their eyes crossed, hazy in the mist of their brains, there wasn't a question to be asked.

It was over.

When he spilt inside of her and kept loving her, pushing her through with the patience no man had ever shown, Rezef knew it was over. It was the last dance, the last evening and tonight had to end.

When he closed his eyes on today's dreams and fell asleep, Rezef remained awake. She had never been able to sleep with a man beside her, trained and used to waking up at the slightest movement. But when his emerald eyes closed and he fell into a restless sleep –Rezef got back up. She got back up, still smelling of sex and sulphur –acrid like the pain in her stomach, and didn't bother to put clothes on. She didn't bother to hide. What was there to hide?

The scars on her body littered her response, the one on her back shining so viciously Rezef felt like cursing it.

It had stolen her future.

She didn't bother to hide, didn't bother to pretend she wasn't what she was, because she was. And so, like she coward she was, she grabbed her twin blades, packed her war paint in the chest she had come with and locked the door to the fighting room.

Tomorrow, her life here would be over.


	17. Rain

It rained.

It was slightly fitting and funny, that it should rain on the day they parted as it rained on the day they met.

It rained.

Rezef had put her war paint on, had braided her hair and had worn the same attire she had first donned when she had been married to the young boy beside her. It was the same as the marriage ceremony, but no one was there. Only Hiccup, Astrid, Rezef and Stoic. Only them.

It all started with them after all, didn't it?

It rained.

Rezef had considered warning her Traumhog. Telling him of the death of her marriage. She hadn't. Maybe Gothi had. She supposed the old woman did. It would be like her to.

But no one was here.

And it was three against one, when Rezef Aath Golnaukhûn Bûrznûl Mornûl Morgûl stopped being a wife. She wouldn't have won. She didn't even try to fight. She allowed the ring on her finger to be taken away, the blood spilt in a cup to be tossed to the ground.

She was void. Revoked. Their love was invalid.

Was it even love?

It rained.

So Rezef packed her things and left without a word, without a sound. She had been an Assassin before being a wife, and would carry on being one long after she had stopped being his wife. Assassins did not make foolish noises. They did not fight against fate; they did not fight a fight they could not win.

Maybe it was why Assassins rarely found love. Because they didn't want to get hurt by fighting for it.

Rezef left.

And it carried on raining.

She left the rain of Berk and the green grass. She left the wooden houses and the roaring seas. Rezef left the cool weather that didn't chill her quite as much as Hiccup's words, the emerald forests which reminded her of his eyes and the dark nights in which Toothless loved to fly. Rezef left Berk, though Berk never truly left Rezef.

She left, and no one was left to cry when Mornûl's great wings blasted them down to the floor one last time. No one, not even when she became a black dot on the horizon and a shadow in the skies.

No one. 

But Rezef never truly left.

Not Hiccup anyway. She didn't leave his heart when he had words with Astrid and the girl hit him. She didn't leave his mind, always lingering at the back of his soul when the night grew dark and the air empty.

She had been a shadow by his side.

And Hiccup missed her.

He missed her when he tripped down the stairs and fell to the floor for the first time in a year. He missed her when he bumped twice into the same object, in the same place. He missed her when the fighting room became a storage room. He missed her when he noticed the golden stain on the floor. He missed her when he caught a scent of the healing herbs she had left.

He missed her, though he didn't miss her as much as he loved Astrid.

But it wasn't the end.

Neither for him nor for Rezef.


	18. Epilogue

The black dragon flew back to her homeland, to the golden sands and the endless sun. She flew, and when she landed she no longer was a wife.

She was Rezef Aath Golnaukhûn Bûrznûl Mornûl Morgûl, and she had a task to do.

Rezef started designing plans for a city to be built on the sands of Harad. The idea, mad at first, became more and more readily executable as time when by and the Assassins each found themselves included in the project. A city to unite Harad. A city where the arts would develop and the land would be worked. A city of nomads.

Aangoi.

The city of the sun.

The plans were ready in the third year of Rezef's return and the construction began in the coolest months of her fourth. Her Uncle and Traumogh left her in charge of the tribe as they sailed across the seas to find stones –and never came back.

It rained at their funerals, when their blades and weapons were laid to rest in the sand, in the dust of where Rangoi would one day stand.

It rained also the day Rezef became the leader of the Haradrims in her fifth year, having been acclaimed by all as both master of the guild of Assassin and Traumogh of the people.

Aanashkala was the last building to be finished in Aangoi, a palace where the arts would be studied and the culture of the Haradrims would flourish. A place for Rezef to live –and heal from the scars on her heart.

Life began in Aangoi, ten years after the beginning of its construction. Aged thirty two, Rezef sat for the first time on the throne of Aanashkala, throne which would come to be the symbol of the Haradrim power and culture. Bards from all over the desert rushed to Aangoi, sculptors and painters fed and lodged in exchange of the passing on of their knowledge. In less than a year, the city of the sun became the neuralgic centre of the whole of the South.

Words reached Berk of a tribal civilisation, with a woman at its head, rising high above all others in the mastery of arts and the fineness of their craft. No movement was made to enter contact with the city build in the desert until, seventeen winters after Rezef had departed from Berk, the inhabitants of the island received an invitation to participate in the Warrior tournament of that year.

Hiccup, chief then of the Vikings, accepted the invitation from the female ruler of the Haradrims and, along with his wife and kids as well as most of Berk, flew across the Sundering Sea to the desert of the South with a strange thought in his heart.

Harad was nothing like he remembered.

When the dragons caught sight a city, laying low on the coast of the sea, roars were exchanged throughout the party. The reptiles landing amongst the obsidian walls, cries of happiness echoing through the Haradrim necropolis.

A man dressed of black stepped out of the shadow.

"_welcome to Rangoi, the city of the moon. This is the Necropolis of Harad."

Glances shifted to the side, eyes roaming uneasily over the obsidian walls which housed the deads. Sounds died as the Vikings closed their ranks, ready to defend themselves against the dead should they rise. The Assassin ignored them.

"_Morgoth asked us to give you rest for tonight, and accompany you to Aangoi tomorrow. The city of the sun is hidden in the sands, and we therefore ask of you that you do not seek to understand where we walk. Morgoth is the one to have invited you today."

"_Morgoth?"

"_we call Our Lady such, so that her name may be hers only."

And when they reached Aangoi the following morning, Hiccup was gobsmacked. Hundreds upon thousands of tents of millions of colours stretched under the armoured walls of a city. Water gurgled inside small canals dug into the sand, giving life to the earth as they roamed through fields and fertilised crops. He could not believe his eyes. Where once had lain but barren sand and beaten rocks now was a civilisation. And when the great golden doors of Aangoi opened before him, allowing him through the water filled city of the sun –Hiccup forgot Harad as it had been. This was the new Harad. Homage to life and joy, where everyone had a place and those who didn't still found one. It was a young civilisation, but one of peace and craft.

It was the proof life could be found in the strangest of places.

Hiccup was beyond mesmerised when the great onyx doors of Aanashkala swung open and he was led through corridors of fresh stones and pathways of carved wood, through small courtyards with gurgling fountains in which people declaimed Haradrim poetry and science reigned. He walked through the quiet shadows of the great walls, following silently the Assassin before him who led the boy, the man –past the palace's hamam, past the basins of blooming flowers and into the quiet freshness of a grand room. The ceiling was high, easily the height of eight or ten men. The room was longer, statues of arts and sciences stretching either side of a long pathway which lead to a throne, draped in many types of finery but carved inside the earth.

The throne was one with the room, its mass having been carved into the same stone which had been used for the floor of the room –its seat carved out of the stone rather than into. The figure dressed in black sat on the throne was sitting on the very stone of the foundation of the castle.

Hiccup began to walk forward.

And for the first time in seventeen years, he laid eyes on Rezef.

* * *

The girl hadn't changed. Well. He guessed she was a woman now (had she ever been a girl?). She still donned her armour and braided her hair in the same way, though her face had lost some of the curves of youth and her skin had darkened a little. Her hair was also longer, a thousand of clicketing beads tangled in her mane –but she wore no crown.

The man who had led him bowed before the seated woman.

"_Morgoth."

She rose from the seat, and he could not help but notice she had kept all her grace in her movements.

And Nazt and Matum still hung in her back.

He watched her, mesmerised, as the woman strolled up to him and brought the man back up from the ground.

"_how many times have I told you not to bow, Verafiil?" the assassin grinned, shrugging.

"_I like bowing. Makes me feel like you are greater than you are." She chuckled at his response, her eyes settling onto her guest. They veiled.

"_I see you came, Chief Haddock."

His jaw tensed. Since when was he Chief Haddock?

"_Rez…"

She halted him.

"_I would ask of you to refer to me as Morgoth. It appears you lost the right to call me Rez a long time ago."

It stung. But who did it sting the most?

"_anyway. I invited you here not to mull over past deeds but rather to try and tie once more an alliance between our people."

Hiccup took a step back.

"_erm… well… I am married and my daughter is still young…"

She laughed, and he had to admit he had missed that sound.

"_I was not speaking of that, Chief. Merely asking you to consider the clause of a possible peace and trading treaty between our two nations."

With a sheepish laugh and a hidden pain, Harad and Berk opened the first route trade.

* * *

Rezef carried on ruling in Harad long after Hiccup's death. The woman, their leader, had transcended time in rising above Haradrim customs and warrior ways. The mythical leader of Harad didn't die –she couldn't die. She _was_ death. So, when her time had come, she simple left her mortal skin behind and in that the powerful blast of the Morgûl, she slammed the whole of Harad to the ground one last time.

* * *

The legend says, that when the wind is howling through the corridors of Rangoi and the night is dark: one can see the Bûrznûl's shadow on the walls, casting promises of a better world onto the fabric of the night. The golden classes argue it is but the flickering of the candle's flame when the wind rushes past. The earthly people stay clear of the place -stay clear of the night.

But the Assassins know.

It is simply the song of the Mornûl, the whispers of the Ultimate Warrior. It is the Aath haunting the night, the Golnaukhûn watching silently as Morgoth's people awake to the rising sun.

It is the dance of a Body of Sand.


End file.
